Salutations!

[Incubus2112]

Hey all, my name is Brent A.K.A Incuubus2112. Nice to meet you.

I am brought here today by way of a spur-of-the-moment Christmas purchase for myself from the 2016 holiday season.

And there it sat for a few months until round about mid-March when I broke out the All in One Extract kit from Northern Brewer. Came with a 5 gal kettle, paint buckets, siphon starter, and hoses. Also included was the milled grain, cheese cloth bag, and the extract as well as the yeast.

I was most concerned with not sanitizing everything correctly, but I ended up pushing together all of these alien things to make a drinkable beer my first time out.

Not only drinkable, but actually good.

I have had a lot of experience cooking food and I was going through what I had experienced in that milieu: that I could create stuff that was better than what I was purchasing as well as cheaper!

From that point, I went all grain. Got a 10 gal igloo/mash/lauter ton and tried my hand at my first all grain batch of German altbier from NorthernBrewer.

This was WAY more difficult than the original recipe with a multistage mashout to get alpha and beta-amalyse from the mash. It came out decent. Not great, not bad, but decent.

Since then I've been brewing nothing but California Common beers after having purchased a keg of Anchor Steam and noticing how it lost its bitterness when properly chilled off tap.

I've gone about recreating this and am still in the midst of it having a batch coming out of fermenting that I'm planning on cold crashing to drink day after tomorrow via keg.

To finish up with I've just gotten my chest freezer (7 cu ft)

Here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MVVITCC/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Along with an after-market temperature control unit.

Here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011296704/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

This should be at my house by Wednesday to make up my fermentation chamber. To say I am excited to be able to brew a true Oktoberfest as well as true lagers is a vast understatement.

Also added to my brewing hardware list are the following alongside the starter kit necessities:
10 gallon Bayou Classic brew kettle with temperature and nozzle
Decent (for me) external propane brew burner
50 foot copper wort chiller
Barley Muncher (15 lb hopper)
Kegerator with single regulator
20lb Co2 tank
KegCo 7 gallon glass carboy and fermenter w/ straps
Aqueous Labs refractometer here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LW4HHRC/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
1 Torpedo Corny Keg new
3 Used Corny Kegs

So.. that is basically where I am at now. Definitely in the hunt for a good starter lager recipe to test out, soon

 

[Cyclman]

Welcome to the hobby, and the group, from CO

 

[Incubus2112]

Ahhh, the home state of the AHA. Have you been to the convention there, yet?

 

[JohnSand]

Sounds like your hooked. Welcome aboard.
I use Brewing Classic Styles (book) as a source or inspiration for many recipes. I also read the recipes on HBT, choosing ones with plenty of positive feedback.
Make beer, have fun.

 

[mbobhat]

You know...you can use that kegerator to make a saison as well...Just hook up a lightbulb to your temp controller, and ramp up the temp every couple of days...makes a fun use of fermentation control...You'd still have plenty of time after that to make your lager.