a few questions

You may already know, I got my beer kit and beer ingredients today. I have a couple quick questions.

What is the proper way to take a hydrometer reading?
When boiling the wort do I wait for the hotbreak before I start timing my boil and adding hops? For example, Boil until hotbreak and then wait 15 minutes for first hop addition and so on.
Do I need to boil the topoff water for the wort? How long?

Thanks.

Take the hydrometer reading where the body of the hydrometer is at the flat level of the liquid, not where the liquid climbs the shaft.

I wait for the hot break to add my hops and start my timer. If you don't, you get hops stuck to the side of your pot.

To boil or not to boil, that is the question... It's been debated a lot on these forums. Some do, some don't. I never did when I was doing extract and I didn't have any problems. It's up to you.

I put the malt extract and the hops in the refrigerator along with the yeast. I plan to brew on sunday. Should I put the specialty grains the the fridge as well?

Fingers said:

...climbs the shaft.

Click to expand...

uh huh huh huh huh...

+1 really to what he said. hops after hot break is the norm.

I boiled my tap water...but I'm anal like that. (heheheh, anal...)

How good is your tap water? tastey? or do you avoid drinking it?

the basics of brewing teach you to avoid risking contamination. tap water is a risk if its not boiled...but not a huge risk unless you have sketchy water that you already know about.

some boil boiled water...I find that excessive. you can always buy 2 gallons of bottled water, chill it in the fridge, and then that makes it easier to get the wort cooled the last 20-30 degrees.

*end of druck post*

Check out the video in this thread - The video is by Bobby M and he does an excellent job of explaining it (all his videos have really helped me)

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=67311

I never boiled my top off water when I was doing extract. And I just switched to AG after doing about 8 years of extract. never had a problem.

Just from the sink into a sanitized pitcher, into the fermentor.