First Ever Home Brew

[spagyric]

So Sunday was my first ever brew day and I wanted to share my experience. The day had its ups and downs; I laughed, I cried, I relaxed, stopped worrying and had a few brews. In the end I think I made beer, but I definitely need to get my system dialed in a little tighter.

So the beer I set out to make was an all-grain brown porter with some Chinese spices (ginger, cinnamon, Sichuan pepper and star anise). My goals with this batch were to a) brew something resembling a brown porter b) not overpower my beer with the spices c) not botch the sequence.

So I ran into my worst snag during the mash. I have a pot with a false bottom that I'm using for my mash tun and thought I would heat it to temperature with the grain in it and then let it sit. Well I freaked out and thought I had overheated it and turned off the heat only to come back and find the mash way too cold (I know, using a thermometer is not rocket science) so I turned on the heat again and this time accidentally heated it above 160 F. So I freaked out again and stirred the mash until the temp dropped to about 156 F, put the lid on and let it mash for another hour. The temp only dropped a degree or two this time. The iodine test showed some starch was present, but much less than at the beginning of the mash so I opened a beer and moved on.

From that point on, things went more smoothly, I didn't have any problems with the sparge or boil. I did wind up with less wort than I was expecting, but got a slim five gallons. I only aerated the wort by shaking around the carboy for a couple minutes and then pitched my yeast. I don't know whether I aerated well enough, but it krausened within several hours so I think it worked alright. Right now it smells a little like bananas, which makes me wonder whether my temps have been ok, I don't have a thermometer for measuring room temperatures.

In all, I think it went ok. My OG was 1.066 which is maybe a little high for a porter? but if that's my biggest problem then I'll be pretty happy. Anyway, that was pretty much how it went, it was lots of fun. Feel free to tell me where I went wrong, I know I have a lot to learn.

 

[C-Rider]

Good Luck! Pretty gutsy doing a AG for your first brew! I'm just moving from Extract Kits to Extract and Select Grains.

 

[JonM]

Welcome to the hobby, man! Sounds like you've got the process down a lot better than I did on my first couple of batches.

The best way to learn more is to brew more and, of course, read up. Happy brewin'!

 

[mlarnold]

Agreed, very ambitious for a first brew. Don't let anybody tell you that you shouldn't start with allgrain though, that's what I did, having only the great info on here and it didn't turn out like pish but it wasn't all that great either. Hope it turns out great for you welcome to brewing .

 

[Vuarra]

I reckon it's like a pool... no sense easing your way into it like I did, just go off the highest diving board to all grain... the boys are going to be chill no matter what, but at least you'll be worrying about everything else to deal with them

 

[spagyric]

Thanks everyone. As far as starting with all-grain, one of the reasons I'm learning to brew (and a big reason the home brew undertaking has spousal endorsement in my household) is because one of my goals is to brew some decent gluten-free beer for her. After a lot of research I've found that the only economical or practical way to get gluten-free malt is to make it yourself. So I'm learning to all-grain brew with typical malt and learning to malt with sorghum, millet, and buckwheat. The goal is to brew a gluten-free beer that I would drink by choice, which is more than I can say for the gluten-free beers available commercially (to be fair I've never tried new grist, and St. Peter's isn't bad.)

Anyway, I love this site, I've learned a ton just by reading through old threads and seeing what things tend to hang people up. And everyone's fun too, so thanks for being an awesome community.

My plan for this brew is to let it sit in primary for another four or five weeks, prime and bottle. Hopefully on another couple of months I'll have some homemade brewskis that I actually want to drink.

Cheers!

 

[McGreen]

I'd love to taste this brew you started with!

You are gutsy bro! I have only made 4 batches, now onto extract/selected grains, but my first brew was an Amber all extract. Hardly any work! You are jumping right in! Awesome!