In need of advice

I will probably be picking up my new 5 gallon beer kit tomorrow, and will be making amber ale. This will be my first 5 gallon brew, I have done a few Mr. beers. I plan on using a 5 gal. bucket as my primary, and a 5 gal. Carboy as my secondary. Then i will bottle it into glass bottles. I will be following the directions but i wanted to hear any advice/criticisms from you guys.

I mean any kind of advice......

Well if you're talking about a bucket that came with the kit you're taking about 6.5 gallon bucket or so. The extra room is for the krausen. I assume you're doing extract brewing. Add a little extract at the start of the boil and the rest in the last 20 minutes or so. Keep everything that comes in contact with the beer after boiling clean and sanitized. Invest in star San for a sanitizer, and oxyclean for cleaning stuff like bottle labels. As for yeast, make sure to aerate and I'd use rehydrated dry yeast. Read a book about brewing like how to brew by J. palmer.

Edit: also try to take measurements and write down what you do. welcome to the hobby and best of luck to you!

Amber Ale is an AWESOME Brewer's Best kit. Was my 1st and have only not reproduced because SWMBO likes light-er beers so I have brewed more of them.

I have told my newbie buddies to read the instructions 3 times before even setting up to brew and then sanitize, sanitize, sanitize.

Good luck and WELCOME!

Only additional advise I can give is "Proceed with caution, brewing is addictive"! Maybe the Surgeon General should think about having that stamped on all bags of malted grain.......?

In truth - Relax. Your bound to have a hiccup here or there, but as long as you keep it clean, sanitized, and more or less "by the book", you'll end up with a decent beer and a laundry list of things you wish you'd done differently. Thats part of what makes this "hobby" so enticing. No matter how many books, classes, advice from people scattered around the globe, there's always a way to improve on your last batch! A day to learn, a lifetime to master.

Kippis!

Sounds like a good plan. When I switched from Mr. Beer to a larger kit one thing I was never told was to sanitize the yeast packets. They are foil for a reason. Rehydrating the yeast IMO is an extra step for things to get contaminated. Most brands recommend pitching directly into the wort when it reaches pitching temp. I agree with everything else Erroneous said though. Lots of good advice in this post and all over the board. Good Luck and have fun

- BBS

Skip the moving the brew to the secondary vessel. For ales, it's completely unnecessary unless you're going to age it on something that works best off of the yeast (dry hopping doesn't qualify).

Read the instructions (as already mentioned) and get Star San to sanitize with (also already mentioned). Fill a spray bottle with Star San solution to use when you need to sanitize something that you cannot dunk into the bucket. Also, sanitize everything that will touch the wort post boil. Chill the wort as fast as you can. If you're going to use liquid yeast, dunk the packet in the Star San solution before opening it up (believe something similar is on the pack). Read up about what temperatures the yeast you're using like best (or does it's best work at). Then keep the beer fermenting in that temp range. Get a fermometer (at the very least) for your fermenter(s). Put Star San solution into the airlock after installing it into the stopper/bung in the bunghole of the fermenter. If you're using a bucket, then just shove it into the black rimmed hole in the lid. Depending on the yeast, and how much headspace you have, look into what you need to do to make a blow-off tube assembly. Make sure you get an OG reading of the brew before pitching the yeast. Make sure you have a hydrometer and practice using it a couple of times before brew-day.

Look up the threads about fermenting beer. There's a TON of information on the boards ready to be had. Biggest thing is to NOT rush the brew.

Just remember, RDWHAHB and time/patience is the best ally/tool you can have. Also, use the search feature of these boards. Chances are, pretty much any question you might have, has already been asked, and answered many times.

Golddiggie said:

Skip the moving the brew to the secondary vessel. For ales, it's completely unnecessary unless you're going to age it on something that works best off of the yeast (dry hopping doesn't qualify).

Read the instructions (as already mentioned) and get Star San to sanitize with (also already mentioned). Fill a spray bottle with Star San solution to use when you need to sanitize something that you cannot dunk into the bucket. Also, sanitize everything that will touch the wort post boil. Chill the wort as fast as you can. If you're going to use liquid yeast, dunk the packet in the Star San solution before opening it up (believe something similar is on the pack). Read up about what temperatures the yeast you're using like best (or does it's best work at). Then keep the beer fermenting in that temp range. Get a fermometer (at the very least) for your fermenter(s). Put Star San solution into the airlock after installing it into the stopper/bung in the bunghole of the fermenter. If you're using a bucket, then just shove it into the black rimmed hole in the lid. Depending on the yeast, and how much headspace you have, look into what you need to do to make a blow-off tube assembly. Make sure you get an OG reading of the brew before pitching the yeast. Make sure you have a hydrometer and practice using it a couple of times before brew-day.

Look up the threads about fermenting beer. There's a TON of information on the boards ready to be had. Biggest thing is to NOT rush the brew.

Just remember, RDWHAHB and time/patience is the best ally/tool you can have. Also, use the search feature of these boards. Chances are, pretty much any question you might have, has already been asked, and answered many times.

Click to expand...

Good stuff here... +1

bosco