First brew recipe

Hello All

I believe sometime today I will head down to the beer supply shop for the first time and purchase some ingrediants.

I have a few questions, am I restricted to making only Ale's? I have read Lagers are more difficult and require some sort of cold temps? I will be buying 2 kits so that I can make a 10 gallon batch.

I have these kits available, and a lot of ingrediants

Cooper's

Morgan's
Morgans Canadian Styles Muntons
Muntons Spraymalt Muntons Beer Kit Enhancer - 1 kg


Baically should I just stick to anything that says ALE?

yeah, wait until you get the process down and have some sort of temperature control before jumping into lagers. besides closely controlled temps, you really need to pitch a lot of yeast as well, which can require a large starter. however, there are many ales you can make that resemble lagers (cream ale, blonde ale, kolsch) so if you ask the guys at your homebrew shop about some recipes, i bet they'll help you out. i don't have any experience with the kits, but you can easily find a recipe on here that looks good to you, print it out and take it to the shop, they should have most of what you need. a simple extract (possibly with some steeped specialty grains) would be a good place to start.

Agree with Andriod.

Head down and ask for some help putting together a 10 gallon batch Ale recipe or kit. Someone will be bound to help you. Just make sure to mention what you are trying to do. It is important that they know you have a mammoth pot and want to do 10 gallons at the same time.

One question I do have for you though.

How are you going to handle the yeast. What are the size of your fermenters and how are you going to put yeast in each of them?

One thing you could do is try and split your batches into two fermenters and pitch different yeasts into each. This way you can get an idea of what different yeast does to your wort.

Just a thought!

OH! I double checked that BTU thing we talked about. My friends burner was 155,000...I would double check that equation with your homebrew shop if I were you.

Good luck!

Hey guys

You know, that is the best idea. I see alot of recipes here and there but it all comes down to what the local guys have in stock right.

I have large glass damijohns I used to make wine so I am going to use one to hold my first brew. About the yeast, I am unclear about what you are asking me. I will buy as much yeast as adivsed for this batch, then drop it into the fermentators once i activate it.

Will it be difficult to add the yeast? The idea about two different fermentators is possible, and I like the idea of trying 2 different yeasts so i can see which one I prefer.