New & Brewing from California

So my wife bought me a brew kit a year ago last October. Sadly, I let it sit unused until three weeks ago. A friend of mine saw it and practically drooled upon it. He has been brewing for years and finally convinced me to get to brewing.

I started with a Racer 5 Clone from Bear Republic. I love IPAs and this looked kinda easy. Well, the hb(I know what this means now) store was soooooo daunting. Soooooooooooo many ingredients and me with not a clue in the world.
At least there was a friendly kid there named Adam who helped me. (Great name since he helped me with the birth of my first beer.)

Well, the ingredients were compiled and I headed home to get brewing. A few problems happened:

1.) Forgot the 0.42lbs of sugar (not sure this will matter, just change the recipe a bit)

2.) Um, didn't "dry hop" the hops. My brewing friend told me that it all went in during the boil. (Just will be a bit more hoppy I hope. A bit of a change in the recipe, again.)

3.) Had no real clue just what the hydrometer was for, so I didn't use it at all. Oops. I know better now thanks this site.

4.) Oh, it fermented in the carbouy for 2 1/2 weeks before bottling it. (Still don't know just what this will do. But the bubbles didn't stop for nearly 2 weeks.)

BUT...... It was bottled today. Now I wait for two weeks and open my first REAL BEER!!!

WOOOHOOO


Mr. B

Hi and welcome to the forums. There are always screwups on the way to learning to brew. Yours does not sound to serious. It will be good beer. Make sure the bottles are carbing at 70 degrees or so if you plan to have any cabonation after 2 weeks.