Help a noob?

Everytime I did a google search this website came up with the answer, so I decided to join! I am starting my first batch this Saturday, and am hoping someone can help me here. Anyway, I didn't want to brew a beer from an ingredients kit, it seems to defeat the purpose of making my own beer.:rockin: So I went to the homebrew shop and picked up these:
1 lb of Crystal 20L
3 lbs of DME
6 lbs of LME
2 oz of simcoe
2 oz of cascade
1 oz of centennial
WL California V

Just wondering if anyone can help me with a basic guidline on how to put this all together. I want to do a full boil since I have a 7.5 gallon pot/burner for the boil. And I built a wort chiller out of 20ft of copper tubing. How much water do i use and such. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

best advice would be to download teh free trial pof Beersmith, load your recipe in and then play with your hop additions withing the amuont you bought to get the IBU's you're looking for.
What kind of beer are you looking to make? IPA? Pale Ale? That will influence your hop schedule. Seems the hop schedule is what you're asking for advice on?

Cant really help you, but, Did you get any recipes you wanna do with your ingredients? Do you have all the therm, spoon, container for fermentation and everything?

I think 20 feets of cooper isnt that much long? Pretty sure you will use couple of liter for sure

I am making an IPA hopefully. Im curious about the hop schedule and amount of water for a 5 gallon batch. I'm not sure on how much water to boil for my main pot. I know there will be one gallon for the steeping then how much for the wort pot to get 5 gallons roughly?

it's really best to read the following, no one sums it up better than John Palmer:

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter1.html

and buy the book, it's a very useful tool for learning how to brew.

what kind of DME and LME did you get? there is more than one flavor of each.

briess DME and Light LME

briess is a brand name not a type.

gold light

Looks closer to an IIPA with how much extract you have there. You could use the DME at the start of the boil and the LME at the end to up your hop utilization. That would also help keep the color fairly light. I know simcoe and cascade are both normally used towards the end of the boil for flavor and aroma.

NewtoBrewing said:

1 lb of Crystal 20L
3 lbs of DME
6 lbs of LME
2 oz of simcoe
2 oz of cascade
1 oz of centennial
WL California V

Just wondering if anyone can help me with a basic guidline on how to put this all together. I want to do a full boil since I have a 7.5 gallon pot/burner for the boil. And I built a wort chiller out of 20ft of copper tubing. How much water do i use and such. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

Here's what I came up with:
Specs:
OG 1.063
FG 1.016
IBU 59
SRM 7 (liquid malt extract will darken this some)
ABV 6.1%

Are you stove topping or outside burner?
A good rolling boil will evaporate 1 gal/per hour. so go with 6.5 gallons and boil for an hour (mark your spoon so you can see when your volume is getting close to 5.5 gallons) I use 5.5 gallons to compensate for trub loss after fermentation to get close to 5gallons final product.

I like to have about 2.5 gallons of extra space in pot to keep boil overs to a minimum... wouldn't be bad to go with a 5 to 5.5 gallon boil volume take that down to 4.5 and add extra gallon of water to fermentation bucket, to get back up to 5.5 gallons final volume. (esp if boiling in kitchen... you don't want to clean up that boil over mess on your first batch!) It's a mess!... Your call.


Crush 1lb 20lvb crystal malt and steep grains in a grain bag while water is coming up to boil. remove grain bag add 3lbs liquid malt extract and about a pound to pound and a 1/2 of dry malt extract (eyeballing it is fine). Bring to boil.


when wort comes back up to boil add .5 oz centennial for 60 min (total boil) and .5 oz simcoe for 60 min (total boil)

at last 20min add .5 oz Centennial and .5 oz Simcoe.

Last 20 min add remaining liquid and dry malt extract

at flame out add last 1 oz of cascade.

Put your wort chiller into pot after last 15 min malt addition of boil to sanitize (any irish moss would go in then as well to help clarity) not necessary, but I feel it helps.

Wort chiller should get that volume down in about 15-20min. pour into fermentation bucket add yeast and Shake the bucket vigorously for 10-15min to aerate wort.

Are you making a starter for your yeast? I know many people do with White Labs. I use the Wyeast smack packs and don't make starter or dry yeast and pitch dry...


Sounds like a good batch!

NewtoBrewing said:

Everytime I did a google search this website came up with the answer, so I decided to join! I am starting my first batch this Saturday, and am hoping someone can help me here. Anyway, I didn't want to brew a beer from an ingredients kit, it seems to defeat the purpose of making my own beer.:rockin: So I went to the homebrew shop and picked up these:
1 lb of Crystal 20L
3 lbs of DME
6 lbs of LME
2 oz of simcoe
2 oz of cascade
1 oz of centennial
WL California V

Just wondering if anyone can help me with a basic guidline on how to put this all together. I want to do a full boil since I have a 7.5 gallon pot/burner for the boil. And I built a wort chiller out of 20ft of copper tubing. How much water do i use and such. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

Edit: Starfish beat me to it. Looks like SF's solution would be great too!

If it were me and I had these ingredients, this is how I would approach this with a few assumptions:

At least 2 days before brew day:

Take 1 cup of DME and boil with 1 qt of water then cool to < 70*. Pour this liquid into a sanitized jar or growler. Shake vigorously to re-introduce O2 into the "starter wort" Add the yeast, cover opening with sanitized foil and swirl solution. Every time you walk past the jar give it a swirl. Do this for ~2 days.

On brew day:
The Crystal 20 needs to be steeped, so add this to ~1 gallon of 160ish * choline free water(if you're going to use bottled water, use spring water not distilled or RO water), and "tea bag" the crushed grains for 20 minutes or so.

Add the "tea" that you've made to your boil pot and top up with chlorine free water to 6.5 gallon. Add the remainder of the DME and bring to a boil. Set the LME aside.

Once hot break has rolled back in to liquid, add .75 oz of Centennial and 1 oz of Simcoe@ 60 min, 1 oz Cascade @ 15, .5 oz Simcoe and .5 oz Cascade @ 5.

Add LME @ 5 min.

Flame out, chill to 70*F, rack to sanitized fermenting vessel (don't forget to aerate the wort) and pitch the yeast starter and cover. Ferment 3 weeks. Check gravity. If terminal gravity has been reached, either rack to sanitized secondary with the remainder of the hops or dump the hops into primary and let sit another week.

Rack to sanitized bottling bucket with priming sugar, bottle, cap, wait 3 weeks to carb, enjoy.

I will be using a turkey fryer burner with a 7.5 gallon pot. My girl doesn't like boys playing in the house so im stuck to the garage/backyard. I will be making a starter as well. Thanks for the info this is going to be fun.