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That is so very true, while "fancy equipment" can produce excellent beers when you know what you are doing, bare bones can still get you a darn good beer. My very first brew was a no boil kit. I stuck a 4 cup pyrex measuring cup full of water in the microwave to boil it. In the meantime I...

Safeale is a bit more tolerant of warmer fermenting temperatures, but I have used both it and Nottingham with great success. Stored in the fridge a packet of dry yeast will be good for at least a year.

There are many choices in yeast, first and easiest is Ale or Lager. Lager will produce a clean crisp beer with very few additional flavors (undertones). Ales on the other hand produce any number of "fruity" flavors. The various types of yeasts out there each have their own "charactor". So...

Yesterdays stout brewing went great, SG 1.124 right on the button for the recipe. The big starter I made using WLP007 got things bubbling less than three hours after pitching. Today it is blasting stuff through the blow off tube like it is possessed. Hopefully the yeasties will stay happy and...

If you stick with dried yeast strains you should have no problems what so ever. LME doesn't need refrigeration unless you are planing on keeping it a heck of a long time. DME lasts for ages, same for the packaged hops and grains. While refrigeration keeps all those items "fresher"; for a week...

This weekend I'll be bottling up a Holiday Spiced Ale, I left it in the secondary an extra week to dry hop and brewing an AHS Cannonball Stout. The starter is already bubbling away and getting the little yeasties all happy for tomorrows move.

Reading is a start, but the best way is to find a local AG brewer that doesn't mind company and sit in on a brewing session. Also you can make the transition slowly, most folks do seem to follow the extract --> extract + mini-mash --> AG path. Picking up new techniques and knowledge along the way.

It sounds like you killed off most of the yeast during the simmer, seems like some survived since you have some foam starting to form. If you do not pitch another packet of yeast you will have a very slow ferment and the chances of an infection will go up.

Plastic buckets will not cause any problems for the time period you are talking about. You more than likely splashed it around too much prior to bottling.

If you start out with kits, then a scale is not really needed, everything will be weighed out and packaged for you.

Hints would be the standard ones, mainly preperation. Get your priming sugar ready (boil the water add the sugar, stir to dissolve, then cool. While the priming solution is cooling get your bottles ready, sanitize bottles and caps. Sanitize your bottling bucket, bottle filler, racking cane...

If you fermented and aged this brew in the same barrel then yes, you would have a lot of sediment sitting on the bottom. You could rack it into a secondary, let it sit a week or two in order to further clarify, then bottle.

I ended up lagering when I bought a Sanyo fridge on sale for a future kerator project. Figured the fridge shouldn't go to waste so I got a temp controller and put it to work as a lagering fridge. While I enjoy the bolder flavors of the typical ales, there are times where a nice lagered beer...

I've ordered many kits and supplies from Midwest, I have always been happy with their service. Their kits have good directions, you will make good beer. The Muntons dry yeast IMHO require that at the very least you rehydrate it for good results.

Welcome, AHS is a great company, you should also check around locally. If you are lucky you'll have a nearby local shop, they can be oh so convienent when you have that sudden urge to brew and discover you are missing something. As for the best starter kit, ask ten people get ten answers...

I think the problem most people seem to have with LME stems from boiling it too much. I've made some very good beers using LME no boil kits, and using LME in receipes as late additions. Now that I have become a bit of a hop head I admit I do use DME a lot more often since long boils aren't a...

I wouldn't worry. I mostly do late additions and the stirring has never seemed to have any ill effects. The beers have all tasted great.

No brewing today, now that the weather improved it is time (long over-due) to do yardwork. I will be transfering my holiday spiced ale into its secondary and dry hopping it. Will be kicking back later on with some of the pumpkin ale which is now fully carbed and tasting good. Another two...

What's the easiest way to make a mistake? To be in a rush.

You can make things easier on yourself by only using 1.5-2.5 gals for the boils, its a lot easier to cool down 2 gals of wort than 5 gals. How did you prime the beer?