New to Home brewing

Hello all,
Thanks in advance for allowing the brain picking now and in the future.
I am about to jump into home brewing and have been lurking here for a few days now, I am inspired by the wealth of knowledge found thus far. I have also been reading How to Brew by John Palmer(online version, thanks to suggestions found here) and would like to try my first batch as a partial mash, in two weeks money permitting. Are there any problems with this for the first batch? Any problems with using the electric stove, other than taking a long time to reach boiling/stop the boil fast? Wheat beer is probably my favorite and most likely will be the first batch. I would love some suggestions for 5 gallon batch.

Partial mash is a great way to get into all-grain. However, although electric stoves work well for extract, it's pretty hard to hit specific temps and stay there. You can do it, but it's hard. I know from experience. Either way, welcome to the fold, and good luck.

That was what I was thinking although was not sure that would be the case, still looking for an inexpensive S/S turkey fryer, but I do know that the electric stove even has trouble keeping a monster batch of pasta boiling consistently without boil over. This will be the next purchase after I get all my goodies to get started, guess I should start with extract brew for the first one then when I get the turkey fryer I will go partial mash. Thanks for your reply

I have done plenty of batches on my electic stove. I have a glass top stove so when it is about to boil over, just slide if off to the side. If you are doing extact and boiling only 3-4 gallons at a time, no problem. It only takes me about 10 minites to get to boil....just may be my stove. Get the feel on on home bewing. If you like it, advance to your comfort level

That's cool, but it's really hard on a normal electric stove to keep a mash at 158F, even aproximately. Move it off, it falls drastically, turn it down, it keeps going up before it starts to fall.

Is gas much easier for the mash? Trying to decide on using either an 8.5 gal thick aluminum pot on a jet burner, or a cooler type mash tun.

I prefer to cook on gas rather than electric because of the heat up rate and control issue. My new boiler is electric, but the element is in the vessel, and it is thermostatically controlled. I'm gonna use it as my boiler / HLT and mash in a cooler.

Welcome to the forum Treekiller. Regarding your username...are you a lumberjack / tree surgeon, or just a bad gardener?

Sorry for the long delay in my reply, been busy as all get out with work stuff.
As for the user name....well it is a rather long story. It starts with a hunting trip to upper Michigan, one morning while sitting in a tree, I had two deer sneak up beside me. I was using my shotgun with a new scope attached, I slowly turned and aimed the gun through the new scope not taking into account the proximity of the branches around me, I squeeeezed her off and just knew I had one deer in the bag, took aim on the second that by this time had mad a mad dash away from the tree I was in and noticed through the scope that some moron hunter had snuck in behind me. Needless to say the second deer ran right by that dang drunk, and he too mad haste away from the area screaming DON'T SHOOT ME, DON'T SHOOT, I AM SORRY, DON'T SHOOT ME. I sat in the tree for a long time laughing in hysterics, then got down to go have a look, I walked to the spot the I had aimed and...... No deer, no hair, blood or any other sign of a hit. I looked for a long while with still no sign, so I turned to look at the tree where I was sitting to make sure I was in the correct spot and what do I see...... One very large tree branch hanging by a thread. As I said it was a new scope and I had to figure out the hard way to use the iron sights at times like that. Well the next morning we get up to go home and wouldn't you know it my smart @$$ buddies had strapped that dang HUGE branch to the top of the truck. I have yet to live that one down and hence the user name

On occasion, my smart @$$ buddies drop by the house and strap a large branch to my vehicle or some thing silly like that. I have a feeling I will never live this one down, LOL

good story! lucky deer!

DeRoux's Broux said:

good story! lucky deer!

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Poor tree!