My First Extract Brew Day Procedure

Friday will be the first time I brew, and i wanted to send out my procedures to see if anyone had any changes to what I'm going to do.

Equipment Used:
15 gal Brewpot and lip
6.5 gallon Plastic fermentor with lip and airlock
Thermometer (need to buy, as i'm not sure if the water will hit the one in my brewkettle, any suggestions for one from amazon?)
Grain Bag
SS Spoon
Spray Bottle

Ingredients:
Happy Holiday Ale or Hop Scare IPA from midwest (will brew the other Monday)
Both use Wyeast Activator yeast

Thursday Night:
Clean Brewpot, colander and fermentor with Oxi-clean and rinse thoroughly
Set yeast out of refrigerator to to get around 70 degrees for pitching
Mix spray container of Star San

Friday Morning:
Pitch Yeast first thing in the morning to give it time to incubate (around 7-8AM)
Setup propane tank and fryer heater
Bring out 15gal brewpot, sanitize and fill with 5gallons of water
Heat water to ~155
Crush grains and add to kettle for 30 minutes, maintaining 155
Remove heat and let sit for 5 or 10 minutes
Add Extract and bring to a boil for 60 minutes (or what recipe calls for)
Add hops when suggested by recipe
Sanitize Wort Chiller and place in put with ~10 minutes left to further sanitize
After 60, drop wort to under 80 degrees (or what's recommended on the yeast package) and transfer to sanitized primary, running through the strainer to help aerate and filter
Take Hydrometer reading
Pitch yeast and seal container
Wait patiently for fermentation to occur

If you are not making a yeast starter that is preferred and also a hop bag could come in handy to help with the trub. Another thing I've done lately is a late extract addition it's helped with the color and flavor. Use around 1/3 of your extract for 60 min boil then add the rest with 5-10 mins left in the boil.

Welcome to homebrewing! Here are a few thoughts. I hope they help you!

Pitch Yeast first thing in the morning - You mean smack the Wyeast Activator smack pack, right? You won't be pitching yeast until after your wort is boiled and cooled and transferred to your fermenter, unless you make a yeast starter. Note that yeast starters are always recommended with liquid yeast, but you can brew without it. If you plan to make a starter, though, you should do it at least a day in advance. Less than a day and you won't get much yeast propagation, and it's not worth the added sanitation risk IMO.

Sanitize brewpot - You don't need to sanitize your brew kettle before you boil wort. Anything that touches the wort/beer after it's boiled and cooled needs to be sanitized.

Crush grains - You shouldn't have to crush your own grain with a first-time extract kit. They should have come pre-milled from wherever you bought them. If you ever need to crush your own grain, you should do so using a mill made/calibrated for brewers, because other grain mills will give you too fine or coarse a crush.

Other than those points, I think this looks good. Enjoy your first brew session, and good luck!

shawnbou said:

Welcome to homebrewing! Here are a few thoughts. I hope they help you!

Pitch Yeast first thing in the morning - You mean smack the Wyeast Activator smack pack, right? You won't be pitching yeast until after your wort is boiled and cooled and transferred to your fermenter, unless you make a yeast starter. Note that yeast starters are always recommended with liquid yeast, but you can brew without it. If you plan to make a starter, though, you should do it at least a day in advance. Less than a day and you won't get much yeast propagation, and it's not worth the added sanitation risk IMO.

Sanitize brewpot - You don't need to sanitize your brew kettle before you boil wort. Anything that touches the wort/beer after it's boiled and cooled needs to be sanitized.

Crush grains - You shouldn't have to crush your own grain with a first-time extract kit. They should have come pre-milled from wherever you bought them. If you ever need to crush your own grain, you should do so using a mill made/calibrated for brewers, because other grain mills will give you too fine or coarse a crush.

Other than those points, I think this looks good. Enjoy your first brew session, and good luck!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick reply. I did mean smacking the packet to get it going, activate would have been the better term. As for the brewpot, i'll only be using 1/3 of the capacity, so i wanted to quantize the other parts for peace of mind. As for the grains, i got them un-crushed as I wasn't 100% sure when i could take the time off work to brew (I have ~30 days of PTO, but no time with the current project to take) so I ordered them from Midwest un-crushed. They state that rolling over the with a pin is sufficient, and was my plan for crushing the grains.

unionrdr said:

You don't need to take the yeast out the night before to warm it up to room temp with dry yeasts. Taking it out that morning will be fine. Smack packs only need a few hours to swell up,proofing the yeast. And if it's going to be re-hydrated,it only needs 30 minutes to do that. So I do it while chilling the wort.
Mix a gallon of starsan & fill spray bottle,to be more precise measurement-wise. No need to cool it down after grain steep. Just get the grains out. Sparge them if you like,I do. Just remove it from the heat if adding LME to the BK. No burning on the bottom that way. Bring to boil & add bittering hop addition,start timer for 60 minutes. Proceed as normal from this point.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. I will be making sure i get the levels right when using the starsan for the bottle i'll be putting it in. And i'll smack the yeast in the moring straight from the fridge now (1 less thing to not have to try to remember )

Check the recipe in your kit, but it's usually six gallons of water if you are doing a full boil extract kit. You specialty grains will soak up some water and some will evaporate/steam off.

So far so good. Just waiting for the boil to finish up now!