What beer to start out with?

So I'm brewing a cider right now, from what I hear its not going to be in its prime to drink until late summer/fall (not a bad time to have a cider ready). So right after I get done with this cider in primary I'm going to buy another primary fermentor as my primary now is a bottling bucket, but I want to move to controlling temps with a water bath for the late spring/early summer when its too cool to turn on the A/C but too warm to brew (say 80 deg F). I'm also going to get two 3 gallon carboys, one for secondary on my cider and one for secondary on my first beer.

I've been doing my research in all respects to get ready to produce beer, but I'm wondering what everyone recommends for a first beer to brew. I'd kinda like to go off of a recipe and do a 3 gallon batch as I want the ability to experiment with my first few brews and minimize the time between my first batches. Any suggestions for a best recipe that is amenable to a first time brewer?

You will want to brew an ale but other than that brew a beer you like. Keep it simple the first time. Go to your local HB store or check on line. There are a bunch of kits you can get that are pretty easy.
Also, I would brew 5 gallon batches. The kits are made for 5 gallon and if you are going to do the work you might as well get 5 gallons of beer out of it.
Good luck and don't be afraid to keep asking questions.

Yeah, I keep going between 3 and 5 gallon batches... I can't really decide. I like the idea of small test batches as someone else recommended I do, but on the other hand the adjustment of 3/5 of everything and not using pre-made kits is sort of a hassle. But I think I'm getting closer to going with a 5 gallon setup as I'm planning on doing a big batch about 6-7 weeks out from football season for tailgating. So I can be the one drinking homebrew while everyone else drinks swill.

Can I get away with transferring my 3 gallons of cider to a 5 gallon carboy (as I gather minimizing headspace is the goal of carboys during secondary fermentation) without too much oxidation?

I need to make another trip to my LHBS to get a bead on what all they have as they aren't a dedicated HBS operation, so I might go with Northern Brewer or Midwest for a kit to ensure freshness.

You should be fine with 3 gallons in a 5 gal carboy. When you transfer it some CO2 will probably agitate itself out of the beer and occupy the headspace. Just make sure you don't splash too much. I'd say go for the 5 gallon batches in future, I imagine the difference in price is negligible?

If I could go back and tell myself what to do for a first brew i'd say do an IPA. But obviously do whatever you like the taste of.

I'm wondering what everyone recommends for a first beer to brew.

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i would go with a stout or a porter if you enjoy a dark beer. the reason being, that stouts are very forgiving when it comes to their creation. a stout will mask a lot of mistakes you will inevitably encounter in your first brew

Is tough to make a bad ESB or Brown.

brewhead said:

i would go with a stout or a porter if you enjoy a dark beer. the reason being, that stouts are very forgiving when it comes to their creation. a stout will mask a lot of mistakes you will inevitably encounter in your first brew

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Or, along the same lines, a well-hopped PA or IPA, if you like hoppy styles. Same principle--the strong hop flavor will mask any small imperfections.

Also, a basic hefeweizen is one of the easiest brews, if you like that style.

Lol... guess I'll have to make a wheel of beers and spin it. I'll probably do a well hopped PA or IPA though, as I'm not a big enough fan of browns and stouts to brew 5 gallons of them. Though... if anyone has a stout recipe that has coffee overtones to it I'd love have it. The micro-brewery in town used to make a stout that I couldn't get enough of.

brewhead said:

i would go with a stout or a porter if you enjoy a dark beer. the reason being, that stouts are very forgiving when it comes to their creation. a stout will mask a lot of mistakes you will inevitably encounter in your first brew

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This is very sound advice. Another brew that is very forgiving is wheat. In truth though you need to be making a beer that you would be drinking. What beer do you normally drink? Stay in the Ale catagory as already suggested as they require less equipment. What equipment do you have currently by the way?

You might want to check out this site. Loads of great recipes

http://www.stoutbillys.com/stout/recipen2.htm

Ditto on the 5 gallon carboys. If you still want to make a 3 gallon batch, you can do it in a 5 gal.

My LHBS recommended an amber ale for my first brew. It was easy to make and tasted pretty good. If you are going to share your brew with others, they will like it.

Good luck with your first brew!

I normally drink Pales Ales and IPA's and a smaller but approximately equal proportion of stouts and wheats (and some cheap swill ). The equipment I have now is:

Bottling bucket for primary (which I now realize was a less than optimal idea but at the time I thought I could kill 2 birds with one stone, and then realized that my bottling spigot wouldn't be sanitized after a week of fermentation in my closet. It being less than optimal because I'm going to need to do water bath temperature regulation this spring and summer)

5 gal glass carboy

Autosiphon, tubing and racking cane

I'm going it steps on the equipment (financially challenged college student). So obivously I see a brew kettle, a new primary bucket, and bottling supplies in my future.

As per advice I'll probably order a higher hopped PA kit from a midwest area mail order HBS. I was at the LHBS tonight to get the carboy and racking equipment for my cider and they had a pathetic supply of 2 kits and a few cans of hopped LME. But then again their HBS supply section is like 1/6 of their total inventory.

Levers101 said:

Though... if anyone has a stout recipe that has coffee overtones to it I'd love have it. The micro-brewery in town used to make a stout that I couldn't get enough of.

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i don't know about "overtones" but i guess that would depend on how much coffee bean you dry hopped.

0.50 lbs. Crystal Malt 60°L info
0.75 lbs. American Chocolate Malt info
1.00 lbs. American 2-row info
0.25 lbs. Black Roasted Barley info
6.00 lbs. Alexanders Dark Liquid info
1 lbs. Oats Flaked info
.75 oz. Northern Brewer (Pellets, 8.00 %AA) boiled 55 min. info
.75 oz. Fuggle (Pellets, 4.4 %AA) boiled 30 min. info
.75 oz. Saaz (Pellets, 5.00 %AA) boiled 5 min. info
1 teaspoons Irish moss (not included in calculations)
1/2 lb Colombian coffee bean (dry hop) (not included in calculations)
Yeast : WYeast 1084 Irish Ale info

i've also sub'd french vanilla bean for the colombian bean

Levers101 said:

As per advice I'll probably order a higher hopped PA kit from a midwest area mail order HBS. I was at the LHBS tonight to get the carboy and racking equipment for my cider and they had a pathetic supply of 2 kits and a few cans of hopped LME. But then again their HBS supply section is like 1/6 of their total inventory.

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Smart move: avoid LME in a can that is God knows how old.

Fresh, bulk LME from high-volume retailers yields way better results, IMHO. (As does DME.)

MoreBeer and Austin Homebrew have free shipping over $60. Two extract kits will pretty-much get you there.

What school in Iowa? I used to teach at ISU.

This sounds like a good simple and basic recipe. In the directions he recommended cutting back on the coffee to about 8 cups, which sounds like good advice. Also in the directions it says to heat water to 160 then add specialty grains. What you want to do here is get a grain bag when you get your other HB supplies. Have them crush ths specialty grains and you put them in the grain bag. This makes it real simple. All you do is put your water in the pot, drop the grain bag in and turn on the heat. Right before it starts to boil, take the grain bag out and toss grain in garbage. Thats it

I've made something like this before and mine tasted incredible. This one should be "Good to the last drop"



Stout Billy's
Recipe Book

Coffee Stout
Ingredients:

• 1 can Stout extract
  6 pounds dark dutch bulk extract
  1 pound chocolate malt
  1 pound crystal malt
  12 cups coffee
  1 ounce Fuggles hops (bittering)
  1 ounce Fuggles hops (flavoring)
  1 package of Wyeast #1084
  3/4 cup brown sugar (priming)

Procedure:

• Heat water to 160 degees and steep grains. Remove grains and heat to boiling. Add extracts and coffee and heat to boil. Add bittering hops and boil for 40 minutes. Add flavoring hops and boil for 20 minutes. Cool and pitch yeast (I used a starter). Rack to secondary when active fermentation subsides. Leave in secondary 3-4 weeks. When ready to bottle boil the brown sugar with a pint of water for priming. This came out with the coffee a bit strong. Next time I try this I'll probably cut back to 6 to 8 cups of coffee. Specifics: O.G.: 1.071 F.G.: 1.020 dy to bottle boil brown sugar with pint of water to prime. of water while bringing to a boil. Remove at boil. Add extracts and boiling hops. Add coffee grounds last 5-10 minutes of boil. Add finishing hops last 2-5 minutes of boil. Sparge into fermenter and pitch yeast when cool. Primary (Plastic in my case)-5 days. Secondary (Glass for me)-10 days. Bottle with 3/4 cup corn sugar and let age for about 4 weeks for best results. (if you are in a soft water area) yeast starter made from a bottle of Guinness

Specifics:

• OG: 1045-1053

Comments:

• N/A

Thanks for the coffee stout recipes. I'll have to save this thread to use them later. I have a PA kit on order from Midwest. Big Ben Pale Ale.

On another note. I racked my cider to secondary tonight. I'm probably being a little impatient with it considering it was only in the primary for 7 days, but I gave it a couple swirls today and was getting less than a bubble per minute so I decided to go ahead and rack it. I gave it a taste, and its pretty dry as should be expected with the champagne yeast, but its actually pretty good right now. No off flavors that I can notice (consider I was pushing 75 deg F on some days). Not going to call it a success quite yet, but I say its well on its way.