Recommendations for a newbie brew?

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BrettMan

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So I just made my first batch of beer and looking forward to making my second. Any suggestions on a recipe or kit that I should try??

My first was Brewer's Best American Amber and it's still in the primary.
 
Depends on what you like. Check out www.austinhomebrew.com, their kits and clone kits are really nice. Try brewing a commercial style beer yourself using one of their clone kits. I just racket their clone kit of Arrogant Bastard Ale to secondary and I can tell already its going to be great, very strong.

Here's some hints:

Since you are just starting and probably impatient to try your brew, brew something with less alchohol (5%, still stronger than most american commercial beers!) as it is more forgiving when it comes to aging.

Stay away from anything with fruity flavors or possible "strange" additions.

Choose a beer with a popular style of yeast such as White Labs California Ale V or Irish Ale. Learn how to save this yeast for another batch and save yourself $7 bucks. OR just go with the always cheap always good dry yeast.

If you choose to go with liquid yeast, search around here for how to make a yeast starter for a really vigorous fermentation.

Just my 2c

-Mike
 
Thanks for the suggestions! I'll probably try one of the AHS kits. Actually, the AHS Red Wheat sounds good...
 
I like making IPA because I get to use a lot of hops and it makes my whole garage smell beeralicious. I made a copper ale from a kit I got (I think) at Midwest and it was really good.
 
BrettMan said:
Thanks for the suggestions! I'll probably try one of the AHS kits. Actually, the AHS Red Wheat sounds good...

A wheat may be a good idea. Most wheat recipes are very straight forward: wheat extract, some boiling hops, some liquid wheat yeast, the end.

Some do have steeping grains or other ingredients (orange peel, corriander, lemon, etc.) but you can make a very solid wheat beer with only wheat extract and some hallarteur or hersbrucker hops... just don't skip on the yeast with the wheats as a lot of wheat beer signature flavors are from the yeast strain.

Wheats can often be drinkable in 3-4 weeks also. You can skip secondary on them (although I do not) if you'd like because they are naturally cloudy.
 
cyberjoey80 said:
I like making IPA because I get to use a lot of hops and it makes my whole garage smell beeralicious. I made a copper ale from a kit I got (I think) at Midwest and it was really good.

I just received this kit as a Christmas gift. Would you recommend any modification to the kit? When I put the brew recipe into Beersmith with only a 2 gallon boil (less hop utilization), I got an estimated IBU of ~20. I was thinking of making mine a little more hoppy by adding some additional boiling [more chinook like came with the kit] hops (say maybe another 1/2 oz.) to get somewhere between 35-40ish IBU. Also maybe try some dry hopping with Perle as I have never dry hopped before but have 2 oz. of leaf Perle hops. Also, what yeast did you use? I ordered the Wyeast liquid with mine...

Sorry to threadjack, cyberjoey, feel free to PM me. :)
 
Mike-H said:
Depends on what you like. Check out www.austinhomebrew.com, their kits and clone kits are really nice. Try brewing a commercial style beer yourself using one of their clone kits. I just racket their clone kit of Arrogant Bastard Ale to secondary and I can tell already its going to be great, very strong.

Here's some hints:

Since you are just starting and probably impatient to try your brew, brew something with less alchohol (5%, still stronger than most american commercial beers!) as it is more forgiving when it comes to aging.

Stay away from anything with fruity flavors or possible "strange" additions.

Choose a beer with a popular style of yeast such as White Labs California Ale V or Irish Ale. Learn how to save this yeast for another batch and save yourself $7 bucks. OR just go with the always cheap always good dry yeast.

If you choose to go with liquid yeast, search around here for how to make a yeast starter for a really vigorous fermentation.

Just my 2c

-Mike

Mikew I am a new brewer and I have been reading the posts, and I came across this one. How do you save this yeast for another batch? Split it?

I was reading a bit more about dry yeast vs. liquid so are there any hard and fast rules?

I like a hoppy flavor, so I think I will always have some IPA of some sort around, and I think I read some beers depend on the yeast for flavor. Question? I assume dry yeast is cheaper so when is it ok to use dry yeast? And are we talking about the bread making kind?

Sorry for the rambling, they were giving away shots of tequila chasers at lunch. :D

rick
 
rfidd said:
Mikew I am a new brewer and I have been reading the posts, and I came across this one. How do you save this yeast for another batch? Split it?

I was reading a bit more about dry yeast vs. liquid so are there any hard and fast rules?

I like a hoppy flavor, so I think I will always have some IPA of some sort around, and I think I read some beers depend on the yeast for flavor. Question? I assume dry yeast is cheaper so when is it ok to use dry yeast? And are we talking about the bread making kind?

Sorry for the rambling, they were giving away shots of tequila chasers at lunch. :D

rick


You can save the batch for future yeast a couple of ways. One is to time your brewing so you can just pitch it right on the yeast cake when you move your first beer. Or, you can do something called "yeast washing". There are many threads on here about it, but here is a good one: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=18774&highlight=yeast+washing
You can also do a starter, then split it up. Do a search, and you'll find tons of information on it.
I would use mostly dry yeasts in your case because you are planning IPAs. IPAs are one of my favorites, too- and you can use a "neutral" yeast most of the time with very good results. One of the most neutral yeasts is Nottingham, which happens to be a dry yeast that I've seen for as little as .99 a pack. No reason to spend $8 on a liquid yeast for something with a flavor profile, when you want the beer to be all about the hops. I've used both dry yeast and liquid- I prefer using dry for the most part. I don't bother saving yeast from dry packs, it's really not worth the time/effort, but I have pitched on the cake from a dry yeast before.

Lorena
 
Thanks Lorenae, I have been working with kits and the yeast is a bit expensive I will check out the thread you listed and go from there.

IPA is my favoriite brew, so if I can save a bit on the yeast all the better.

Rick
 
I recommend an english pale ale. I feel they are tasty. Slightly different than the american ale variety you already have. IBU is usually 35 - 40.
 
Brew-boy said:
If you like hoppy beer I would order AHS Warrior pale ale it, Its Great.

Yes it is. I just took delivery on that one today. Very good stuff.
 
The recipes we used for our first two brews were easy... One was a Nut Brown Ale from a kit... The other we created it turned out to be a Really Dark Porter... Let me know and I can get you the recipe for both...
 
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