Beginners recipe?

hi,im new to this forum and to home brewing, and would like to know if anyone knows of a good recipe for beginners, iv seen tons of recipes and wanted to know if any are better than others for beginners?
thanks in advance.

Being a beginning brewer I assume you are extract brewing, as opposed to Partial Mash or All Grain brewing?

If so, and this is truely your very first batch, I'd buy a kit from a reputable dealer... there are many, many styles that can be purchase in a kit from your local home brew store or from an on-line vendor. Focus on the task at hand, not so much the recipe... kit beers like tru brew kits, or those house kits at northern brewer or austin home brew, are very tasty, with many styles to choose from.

Austin Home Brew is running a sale on may things this weekend... might be a good time to buy!

Online Vendors:

www.northerbrewer.com
www.austinhomebrew.com
www.midwestsupplies.com

Some classic beginner beers are a hefeweizen, brown ale, or IPA. Brew what tastes good to you!

Just stick to ales.

I'd also suggest an extract kit w/ steeped grains from a reputable dealer. That's how I started and slowly made my way to all-grain.

Good luck and post the results when you're done!

if you like them, hefeweizens are easy and turn out really good. the yeast does most of the work. otherwise, i might suggest starting with a darker beer, like a porter. they tend to cover up any mistakes you make along the way. like someone said above, you could start with a kit just to get one under your belt, but i learned a lot more about the process by reading through recipes and learning about the ingredients. sometimes it helps to look at clone recipes to identify the ingredients that go into your favorite beers. good luck!

I am very inexperienced at brewing. However, I believe the pre-hopped extract kits (like the Coopers kits) might be the easiest home brew kits available. To me they seem to be somewhere between Mr Beer and extract brews that you hop yourself. And they're pretty good too. Of course when I brew using them I feel like I am missing out on the satisfaction of the more complex brewing techniques.

So if you're unsure of yourself or just want to take the easiest way of brewing I'd suggest a pre-hopped extract kit. And if you want more then I'd follow the suggestions of others about using the full extract brewing kits from the reputable vendors mentioned above or a trusted LHBS

videoman said:

If so, and this is truely your very first batch, I'd buy a kit from a reputable dealer... there are many, many styles that can be purchase in a kit from your local home brew store or from an on-line vendor.

Click to expand...

I second this suggestion. I would even look at the mini mash option from AHS as you can do these with almost zero additional equipment than you would for an extract batch....and the stuff you would need, you prb have in your kitchen.

thank you all for your replies... great help..much appreciated

This is one of my favs for a 5 gal batch:
6 lbs Briess Wheat Malt Extract
1 lb of Carapils 20L Grain
1 cup Belgian Candy Syrup
2 lbs. Honey
1 oz. Spalt Hops (60 minutes)
1 oz. Hallertau Hops (15 minutes)
Wyeast Wheat yeast smackpack
4 oz. Raspberry extract

OG: 1.085-1.088
FG:1.010
AVB: 10-10.4%

2 gal. water, steep grains until water hits about 150-160 degrees
bring to boil
remove from heat, add wheat extract, honey, candy syrup.
bring to boil
add Spalt hops
add Hallertau hops during the last 15 min.


fermentation will last roughly 4-5 days
let sit for about 1 week in fermenter
add raspberry extract to bottling bucket on bottle day.



I'll tell ya, this is what I like to call my "Signature Brew", and it is REAL GOOD!

Eves said:

I am very inexperienced at brewing. However, I believe the pre-hopped extract kits (like the Coopers kits) might be the easiest home brew kits available. To me they seem to be somewhere between Mr Beer and extract brews that you hop yourself. And they're pretty good too. Of course when I brew using them I feel like I am missing out on the satisfaction of the more complex brewing techniques.

So if you're unsure of yourself or just want to take the easiest way of brewing I'd suggest a pre-hopped extract kit. And if you want more then I'd follow the suggestions of others about using the full extract brewing kits from the reputable vendors mentioned above or a trusted LHBS

Click to expand...

I STRONGLY suggest not getting a pre-hopped extract kit. They never turn out as well as a kit where you have the extract and hops separated. There's practically no difference in the amount of work anyway.

do yourself a favor and skip the pre-hopped stuff. I would also recommend against doing something like beerme posted. Thats a relatively large brew with a lot of extras that will increase the cost and difficulty. You want something simple and cheap... really depends on the type of beer you like.

<--- Look in my recipe list... both the cascade american pale ale and the english special bitter are good easy first timers that will be ready to drink ASAP.

The ESB has a steeping step so its a little more difficult, but the Cascade APA is dead simple. Boil water, add the LME, bring it back to boil, add the hops at the times listed. Boil time is 60 minutes. After you cool the wort down add the dry hop addition. Its super simple and will be ready to bottle in 10-14 days. Good luck!

cost, yes, a little high, but I can't see what's so difficult about adding a couple of adjuncts. All you have to do is open a few extra containers and pour.

its not only that... its a larger beer. Its gonna take time to age before its mature which I know for a fact a first time brewer doesnt want to deal with.

im reading palmers book at the moment,and was considering the the brew he has for beginners as my first brew:

Cincinnati Pale Ale
3-4lbs pale malt extract,unhopped.
2lbs amber dry malt extract
12 AAU of bittering hops.(AAU, which is confusing the hell out of me)
5 AAU of finishing hops
2 packets of dried ale yeast.

anyone know if it will be hard to mess up? really dont want to get disappointed at my first brew

also considering SIRSLOOPs recipe .. cascade american pale ale

Either one of those recipes will work just fine.

The AAUs are just the way to measure the amount of bitterness in hops. It's probably easier to just follow a written out recipe for the hops, since Palmer is asking you to choose the hops you want to use, and then to calculate the amount. That's not at all difficult, but you may want to follow someone else's hops choices first.