Making my second beer and curious what i should try next.

I'm making my second beer ever. I want to Mash (correct term) all the grains myself, do the whole process. Last beer was a kit and I'm still waiting to taste the final product, but I can't wait and want to make more. I like Guiness, Guiness Kilkenny (my fav, but they don't sell it in the states), Allagash and Stella. Any ideas for my next beer?

Yikes!! So you want to do all-grain on your second brew ever!? You're brave. Hope you've done your reading. Um.....just a quick suggestion for something similar to Stella.

10 lbs belgian pilsner
.75 lbs belgian munich
.25 lbs british cara-pils

mash at 148 for 90 min

.75 oz goldings @ 60 min
.50 oz goldings @ 30 min
1 oz hallertaur dry hop in secondary.

Are you familiar at all with lagering?

ferment with wyeast 2007 primary @ 55 for 21 days, secondary @ 48 for 21 days.
keg condition or bottle condition @ 33 for 30 days

I don't have an extra fridge to lager in yet, unfortunately..... will remedy soon though.

I may be insane, but I would go for something like a porter for my first AG batch. I find the style to be very forgiving of mistakes.

A Guiness like or dry stout is a good choice for a first or second beer. They are easy to make and hide any flaws well. Sounds like the lager (Stella) is out for you as of now.

Do you have all the necessary equipment to go all grain? Tell us about your setup?

I'm going to the beer store today. Need to pick up a big pot, floating thermometer and some recipe stuff. Otherwise it's just a basic setup, 2 fermenters, both with blowoffs and an old style 5 gal pickle jar that i'm gonna rig up as a secondary fermenter. Not much, but I'm noob. Lol. Buying a house soon hopefully, once I get more room I'll be able to expand, waiting for my army bonus on that one. No telling when I'll get that. Btw, anyone know any good home brew shops in Evansville, IN? Only place I found is a winemaking store, gonna try them today to see if they've got supplies.

Thx all,
Cuch.

I was referring to your all grain setup. Do you have a mash tun? Manifold, False bottom, kettle, keg, cooler?

No, was hoping to pick that stuff up today. Store I went to went out of business. There is no home brew supply in my town evidentally. Very sad. I'm going to need to do a lot of online ordering now........... Looks like I'm extract brewing til I get the stuff ordered .

Cuchalain said:

No, was hoping to pick that stuff up today. Store I went to went out of business. There is no home brew supply in my town evidentally. Very sad. I'm going to need to do a lot of online ordering now........... Looks like I'm extract brewing til I get the stuff ordered .

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You may be better off anyway. The point of doing extract and working your way into all-grain is so that you can get your processes down so that when you get to all grain you can concentrate more on the mass and everything else is second nature. Besides, you can still make a pretty descent beer with extract and specialty grains.

I did one extract, then went right to all grain. My first All grain was an american pale ale, and my second all grain batch was an oatmeal stout.

If you like porters and stouts, I highly reccomend an oatmeal stout, it has the dark colors with a much better mouthfeel than the watery (imo) Guiness. My stout is 5 days along now and my brew closet smells amazing! Even the wife thinks it smells good and she's not a beer drinker (Yet)

Cuchalain said:

Otherwise it's just a basic setup, 2 fermenters, both with blowoffs and an old style 5 gal pickle jar that i'm gonna rig up as a secondary fermenter. Not much, but I'm noob. Lol.

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I remember reading some stories on here about people using pickle jars and having an entire batch turn out smelling like pickles..... I'd be careful about that one.

If you want to step up your extract brewing, try picking up Sam Calagione's book "Extreme Brewing" or the book "Brewing classic styles" they have lots of great extract recipes that are interesting and will give you a bit of a challenge