Noob looking for a bit of help

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crosby8787

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So i just ordered everything i need to start off,
http://www.monsterbrew.com/Prod_MaestroKitwithBrownAleKit.cfm#
this will be my first attempt, but i have done my homework and am well versed in cooking and baking, which i think should serve me well with brewing. I was thinking today of how I could jazz this brown ale up, and I thought adding a slight honey flavor with some vanilla extract might go well. I was wondering if,
a) this sounds like a reasonable combination to go with
b) if its possible to play around with a premade ingredient kit?
and
c) could anyone give me an idea of how much to add or at least how i could find out during the process?
Thanks much for the help
 
Adding stuff to a kit is perfectly fine, but I wouldn't suggest doing it with your first batch. Just make the regular kit so you can get the feel of the homebrew process, and not the recipe making process. If you keep things simple at first, you'll do much better and make great beers that will hook you on the hobby. If you start adding things, it could mess up a good beer and you'll be very dissappointed.

Besides, I think once you get into using honey, you'll realize it's not quite what you'd expect.
 
I would agree as well. I'm still learning myself but i would take it one step at a time. You want to get the basics down before you start tweaking things. If you tweak your first recipe and something goes wrong it will be more difficult to understand where you went wrong.

Make a few beers and follow the kits, see your results, then get a little creative. Just my 2 cents.
 
+1 on keeping it simple for your first time. Use what the kit has given you. Be wary of kit directions, however, as they are notorious for being incorrect (ie, sometimes they say to ferment for 3 days and then bottle. this is wrong).
 
Thanks guys! I appreciate the help, especially the bit on honey being dangerous territory. I have a few fond memories of honey beers and would like to bring that feeling back but I will definitely stay away now
 
-3 on keeping it simple. Add about 2 ounces of pure vanilla extract after your boil and before you pitch the yeast. Add two more ounces in the secondary fermenter or when you bottle if you don't use a secondary fermenter.

^^This is meant for a 5 gallon batch and will give about a hint to light flavoring.

If you screw up, you CAN (not garunteed) to learn more than if everything when perfect. My logic is that since you are using a kit, you will have extensive directions laid out that will be hard to mess up (at least for the brewing part). So a good way to have a learning experience is a kit. [[[[Edit]]] Pwndabear is 100% correct, most kits cut down fermentation times so you can free up your equiptment for another kit.

However I would suggest breaking the batch up into to fermenters, leaving one to follow the directions and one to screw around with.

For the honey, I would forget it since the honey will lengthen fermentation time and be thouroughly fermented. If you want those flavors you should replace some grains with honey malt.
 
A hybrid approach would be to add honey and/or vanilla extract at bottling time, so that you don't "ruin" your entire batch and can see the difference between the kit beer and the experimental beer. Nothing wrong with that, I do that from time to time.

Beware, though, both vanilla extract (may) and honey (definitely) contain extra sugar, so that will be fermentable and if you're already priming it at bottling time, you could end up with bombs.
 
Germelli1 said:
-3 on keeping it simple. Add about 2 ounces of pure vanilla extract after your boil and before you pitch the yeast. Add two more ounces in the secondary fermenter or when you bottle if you don't use a secondary fermenter.

^^This is meant for a 5 gallon batch and will give about a hint to light flavoring.

If you screw up, you CAN (not garunteed) to learn more than if everything when perfect. My logic is that since you are using a kit, you will have extensive directions laid out that will be hard to mess up (at least for the brewing part). So a good way to have a learning experience is a kit. [[[[Edit]]] Pwndabear is 100% correct, most kits cut down fermentation times so you can free up your equiptment for another kit.

However I would suggest breaking the batch up into to fermenters, leaving one to follow the directions and one to screw around with.

For the honey, I would forget it since the honey will lengthen fermentation time and be thouroughly fermented. If you want those flavors you should replace some grains with honey malt.
Click to expand...

Thanks much man, I didn't know there was such a thing as honey malt. I guess my research was not as extensive as i hoped
 
i'd say to stay with the kit, and learn what to expect. most of us started that way. you learn the flavors, then learn they suck, and that makes you go all-grain sooner :ban:
 
crosby8787 said:
Is 2 oz after boil and 2 oz at bottling too much?
Ps. appreciate the help
Click to expand...

I am fermenting a vanilla cream ale right now. I want the vanilla to be obviously present, but not candy-like. I used 3 oz. after the boil, and I am going to taste my hydrometer sample before bottle to figure out if/how much more I want.

The best thing about homebrewing is that you can tweek ingredients to your specific liking!
 

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