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inda_bebe

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Hello, everyone. im a first time homebrewer, adding another hobby to my long list. i enjoy craft beers and it hard to go back to beers that i grew up with. also, hard on my pockets if i keep spending $20-$30 on a bottle of good stuff. i cant always drink stuff like 100% cuir or black tuesday and CBS. ive spent over $500 last month and that got me into a **** load of trouble, lol.


i just got a deluxe brew kit for xmas and i want to break it in with something easy. i was thinking

DIPA Hop Head Double IPA w/ Headwaters Ale Wyeast Activator,

Old Ale Bourbon Barrel Old Ale - Brewing Ingredients

or Quad. where would you guys recommend picking up a good recipe kit w/ good taste and highest ABV possible?
 
Welcome to this awesome forum! It is not all about ABV, you know....

I have made the second kit, adding a bit more bourbon and two vanilla beans to the secondary, which sat for six months before bottling. It took first or second place in this forum's regional competition in its category last year.

Brewing big beers - those high in alcohol - takes more work (creating big starters, boil over concerns, sugar boosts during fermentation, etc) a bit of finesse, and certainly more attention (temperature control is more critical, for example) than those in the "session" category.

Alcohol aside, much depends on your style preference, as the three you listed are very diverse.

I would start with a simpler kit, a basic ale, to get your preparation, sanitization, brewing, fermenting, and bottling process down before doing the bigger beers, where there is a higher risk of failure and the subsequent $$$ loss greater.

That said, enjoy this great hobby
:mug:
 
thanks for the tip. as for basic, any recommendations? i dont mind starting off w/ something less complicated. i guess it would give me more room to make mistakes.
 
Inda,
I started with a Mr Beer 2.5 gallon cheapy for 40 bucks to see if I would like the hobby. If your looking for a good starter kit the Mr beer is OK, but the review pages on this forum list several much better candidates for just a few bucks more that will do 5 gallon batches and accomodate your high ABV wishes when you get there. I would definately take these guys suggestions about smaller beers first since you can waste a lot of ingredients rushing to the finish line so to speak. Once you get the basics down cold then a high ABV will be fairly easy, but make sure you have mastered cleanliness, sanitation, and temp control 100% before you get the high ABV stuff because the ingredients will be about 40 bucks or so if you use LME and UME concentrates plus dextrin or table sugar. That would be alcohol abuse and we would have to bend your brewers tags and not validate your parking at the hop store for a year. Have fun and welcome, I just got addicted, but I am definately stuck like chuck and I'm still waiting for my first batch to age and mature in the bottles.
Bob
 
lol. i get what you guys are saying. i ordered an IPA kit, from midwest. In two weeks, my friend will be brewing up a RIS to see if i like brewing. He's gonna help me out by brewing it his house and learn as he goes. he's made some really good 14% barley wine, so thats the whole idea that got me interested.

He doesnt like kits, so i figured id start w/ training wheels and get one anyways.
 
A RIS is a great beer, but definitely not a beer for a beginner! (Spoken as someone that is definitely a beginner) Most kits are fine, especially considering they really are just taking a recipe and putting together the ingredients that you could buy for yourself separately if you wanted to.

My first kit was a Brewer's Best kit from the LHBS (local homebrew store). Northern Brewer kits seem to be well liked and that's more than likely what I'm going to be brewing next. The only real worry about kits is whether or not the liquid malt extract and the yeast are fresh. Purchase somewhere that goes through a decent number of kits and that won't be a problem.

One other point of advice that isn't the first thing noticed for many new homebrewers (certainly wasn't for me until I started doing some reading): CLEAN and SANITIZE. If it touches your beer it should be CLEANED. If it touches your beer after its boiled it should be SANITIZED. So you can get away with only cleaning your brewpot, but pretty much everything else you use needs to be sanitized.
 
Speaking from a beginners standpoint, I think everyone should skip Mr. Beers and go straight into 5gallon extract kits. As long as you're paying attention to sanitization, not throwing things randomly into the wort and keeping an eye on temperature I can't see someone failing miserably. Plus, if your first is a standard 3-5% ABV ale then I really can't see the reason not to start there. Just spend a few days reading around the forums, especially in the extract / sanitization sections and you'll be on your way to some seriously delicious homebrewed beer.

Anyways, hope it all works out for you. Good luck INDA

Best,
Saintdog
 
I think for $20 or $30 you can buy enough specialty grains, DME and yeast to make a great easy ale in a small batch, say 3 gallons, to get going. That will give you about case of your own tasty stuff and you can work on your technique as well.

Good Luck Inda!
 
I'm fairly new also, and the first kit I got was the hop head iipa from Midwest. I used safeale us-05, dry yeast. It was a simple process, no starter brew, that turned out great. It's not a huge brew, but a good starter beer with about 9% abv. Hope your brewing is as enjoyable as mine! Cheers!
 
Check out the kits on morebeer.com. I brewed a B3 Stout for my first batch and it turned out great.
 
I say go with your gut, brew whatever style you like and go from there. From my experience which is about a year, just make sure you sanitize properly and pay attention to fermentation temps to get a decent result. you can build on your processes as you go on so just relax and enjoy!
 
IMO I'd say start with a small beer to get your process down and to get a pipeline of beer going. The smaller beers don't normally take as long as a big beer and can be just as tasty.
 
Brewer's Best Kits are pretty awesome to learn with, and dial in your technique
 
Do you really need to boost that one? :)
Add a lb. of light brown sugar at 15 mins. Left in the boil, or add another lb. of malt extract late in the boil (careful not to scorch it!) troll around the interwebs to find out how much you can add without impacting the taste of the beer though...
 
nice. i know what you mean about changing the taste. ill probably keep it the same for now and see how i can compare it with the next batch.
 
Good call. Follow the directions the first time around to give you a good baseline. Then do another batch and experiment after you tastes the first one so you can compare. :)
 
Inda,
You can have all of my ABV. I love the taste of beer but do not care for the consequences so I brew up, boil off the alky, repitch some yeast and add Priming, then bottle. There is some small alky from the new ferment but it is negligable. I can have the best of both worlds. If a cop pulls me over and asks the 64 thousand dollar question I can say yup wanta a sip?. Course I would get some dick head that would make me take a blood test and make me late for an appointment or something stupid like that. It's not about the alky, its about brewing and the end result of great taste that you made yourself. Send me you email and I'll send you all of my ABV's. I got a box full now.
Bob
 
I have a question. I'm reading thru the directions and I'm confused about the hop addition. When throwing in the hops into the boil, do I put it into a grain bag or just throw the pellets in and use a strainer to remove it from the wort?
 
i just toss it in...they get more exposure so more flavor and aroma in the final product...who needs the trub anyways just leave it behind when you rack easy.
 
Throw the hops loose into the boil, when chilled dump it all into the fermenter and let the yeast sort it out. When your beer is ready to bottle or keg the hops will be at the bottom of the fermenter covered by the yeast so you can just rack above them and they stay in the fermenter.
 
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