My first full boil recipe - advice please.

I've completed 5 partial-boil extract brews and they have all been at least "drinkable". Many of the threads on here claim that the singel best thing you can do to improve your homebrew's taste is to move to full boils.

I know I need to upgrade my kettle to an 8-10 gallon model for a 5 gallon batch and invest in a chiller. I also want to move away from the pre-packaged kits and try and scratch out my own recipe.

Below is what I have come up with so far with regards to an ingredients list for a simple Pale Ale and the procedures I plan to follow. Any advice you veterans care to throw my way would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Ingredients:

• 5 pounds Light Dry Malt Extract (DME)
• 1 pound Amber Dry Malt Extract (DME)
• 1 pound Crystal/Caramel Malt 40L grain for steeping (color + fermentable)
• 2 oz. Cascade Hops for bittering
• 1 oz. Cascade Hops for aroma
• Yeast - American Ale from Wyeast #1056
• 4 oz. Corn Sugar (Dextrose) for priming (bottle conditioning)
• 6 gallons of distilled water

Process:

1. Bring 5.5 gallons of water up to a temperature of approximately 158 degrees.
2. Pour all of the Crystal/Caramel Malt into a grain sock and submerge in water for 20 minutes to steep.
3. Remove grain sock and allow excess water to drip back into pot.
4. Bring wort to a gentle rolling boil and add 2.5 pounds of the Light Dry Malt Extract.
5. Add 2 oz. Cascade Hops for bittering.
6. Boil for 40 minutes.
7. Add remaining 2.5 pounds Light Dry Malt Extract (DME).
8. Boil for 15 minutes.
9. Add 1 oz. Cascade Hops for aroma.
10. Boil for 5 minutes and terminate boil.
11. Chill wort to 70 degrees or less and transfer to primary fermentation.
12. Take OG reading with hydrometer - target is 1.058.
13. Optional - add water to get OG to target range.
14. Pitch yeast.
15. Ferment in primary for 7-10 days.
16. Take second specific gravity reading.
17. Move to secondary fermentation for an additional 7-10 days.
18. Take final specific gravity reading.
19. Prepare priming sugar and add to bottling bucket.
20. Transfer wort to bottling bucket and bottle.

Andy Slusher

looks pretty good, you could totally eliminate the secondary if you want and let it go the entire 14-20 days in primary. Leaving the beer on the yeast longer will actually help clean up any "off" flavors and it will clear better (of course, there are also people that support the use of secondary...).