Help make my first beer!

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vlado_skopsko

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HI. I like to try to make mu first beer. I like to make a lager because it is most familiar beer to me. But i have problem with the ingredients because in macedonia there aren't specialized beer shops so i bought some whole grains of barley from a bazaar ( i dont know what type it is ), hops from the pharmacy ( humulus lupulus ) and brewer's yeast in powder from a supermarket and i dont have any extracts :). I have some basic recipes but they include some extracts to be added. So i like to know are this ingredients useful and can someone give me some more precise recipes (or some sites where i could find them) and some tips because now i have many dilemmas. Thank you for your help :mug:
 
First of all check out these sites.
http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html
http://cruisenews.net/brewing/index.php

I think some of the American online stores ship over sea's so you might want to check into that. Also doing a lager for a first beer is gonna be tough, you are gonna have to hold the beer at 50 degree's for fermentation, an ale might be the way to go for your first beer.
 
Welcome to HBT.

I would really recommend getting items imported if you can.

You need to make sure the barley is malted.
The hops will be hit and miss unless you know the alpha acid contend.
Make sure the brewers yeast is not the health supplement.

I would suggest reading.

www.howtobrew.com reading this site and the wiki linked above.

Good luck, you'll meed it.
 
Ya, probably the barley you have isn't malted so it'd be hard to make beer out of it.
 
Thank you all for your suggestions. I know that the barley isn't malted and the problem is that very little informations I can find on that sites. I can't afford to by the proper ingredients from the net so I will try with those I have. Now I m trying to germinate the grain and then try too make a pale malt from it but I dont know how tick the layer should be for baking.I guess it needs to be as thin as possible. But how much is acceptable? Then I m not sure what second fermentation means. Those it means that I need to put more yeast and can it be done after I put the beer in bottles.

Where the processes of making lager and ale take a different paths and can I use the same yeast for making lager and ale?
Thank you all
 
Malting
For malting your own grain, I doubt a lot of people here have done that. We buy it already malted, but that site could help you.
http://***********/feature/284.html

Second fermentation
When you first pitch yeast in your beer, it's primary fermentation. After about one week, you usually transfer your beer to another carboy to get it off the sediment at the bottom. You do not add any other yeast. However, doing a secondary IS NOT necessary. You can leave your beer 1 month in the primary without problems, and then bottle it.

Lager vs ale
You can't use the same yeast for lager and ale. Lager beer are fermented in cold conditions (9 to 13 celsius) and ale are fermented at room temp (18-22 celsius). So if you want to do a lager, you have to find a cold place and use lager yeast. If you want to do an ale, just but it at room temperature and use a normal ale yeast (much easier). That site gives you strains of ale and lager yeast.
http://www.wyeastlab.com/rw_yeaststrain.cfm
 
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