New to homebrew

Hi everyone. I just got started home brewing a couple of weeks ago. I brewed a 2 gallon all grain batch of a Belgian ale with my dad at his house tight after Christmas. He has a Brooklyn Brew Shop 1 gallon kit that he expanded on to do 2 gallon batches. It was a lot of fun. I had already been thinking about getting myself a kit. Getting to brew with him put me over the edge.

As soon as I got home, I started piecing together a kit of my own. I ended up getting a similar setup to my dad. I bought a craft a brew 1 gallon kit, only because they were the only one of those 1 gallon kit options that came with a hefeweizen option. I also ordered a 2nd 1 gallon carboy, a grain bag for all grain brewing, and other odds & ends to get me tgrough the process. My goal was to have the flexibility to do two individual batches, or do a single 2 gallon batch. I didn't go the 5 gallon route, because I wanted to be able to have more variety, and 50 bottles at one time would be way more than I would need.

So far, I've brewed my extract hefeweizen kit, and I also brewed a 1 gallon Brooklyn Brew Shop Bruxelles Blonde kit. I did them back to back, and both are about 1 week into primary fermentation.

In about 5 weeks, I'm having a work friend come over, and we are going to brew a 2 gallon batch of something. I need to figure out what to brew still. I want to do all grain, but beyond that, who knows.

So thats about it for now. I enjoyed the all grain brewing more than the extract kit I tried. Feels more like you are actually creating something. I'm looking forward to how these turn out, and I'm looking forward to brewing my next batch. If you have any suggestions for simple all grain recipes, I wound appreciate the suggestions. I'm currently thinking of doing the same Belgian ale that I brewed with my dad as my next one, but feel free to throw some ideas my way. Thanks.

 

I blame my daughter for this obsession. You can blame your dad.

 

Welcome to the hobby!
Just wanted to chime in and say, read up here. Tons of info. Of nothing else, hit the stickies up.
And you should be able to use any vendors 1g kit. The exception might be the coopers/Mr beer mix it and pitch yeast.
Cheers!

 

Sounds like you are off to a great start.

If there are certain commercial beers you like, look around for clone recipes. There are plenty on this site.

 

It's cool that you and your dad can do this together. You'll look back on this as a definitive moment.

 

I do 2 1/2 gallon batches for similar reasons but I can think of a good reason for you to want a 5 gallon batch.:rockin:

Make a Russian Imperial Stout. Sample a bottle on week 3 after bottling. Sample one bottle per week. You'll run out of beer before this beer hits its peak flavor. If you limit the sampling to one bottle every 2 weeks the last bottle will be the best.

Have a couple friends over to help you sample your stout. Even if you limit them to one bottle for sampling, the beer will be gone before it gets close to the peak flavor.

 

It's been a few weeks since my first home brew. I've since bottled both my first batches. My dad came down to my house and helped me bottle them. I was happy that everything smelled very good while bottling. Smelled like good beer







This is just the first batch bottled:


I've also been busy preparing for my next brew day. I'm going to do a Belgian ale (I think) that is using the recipe that my dad and I brewed over Christmas. It's an all grain recipe that should give me 2.1 gallons. I'll use a grain bag and will bottle after 2 weeks. I'll have a work friend come over and help me with this one, and I'm going to give him half of the final batch. He's done wine before, but never beer, so it should be fun for him.

I made my own immersion wart chiller. I remember it taking some time for a 2 gallon batch to cool in the sink with my dad the last time we did it, so I wanted to better. I bought 20' of 3/8" copper pipe and wound it up myself. I need to order some new hose to finish it all off, but other than that, I'm ready to go.





I have a 3D printer, so I've been printing odds & ends for brewing. Here are some things I've printed:



This one is a auto siphon holder. It works OK, but could use a more secure way of holding it to the kettle. Also, it doesn't really fit in the 1 gallon carboy to clip onto the opening.

 

I tested out my wort chiller today with 2 gallons of boiling water.

Boil - 100F: 4 min
Boil - 75F: 6 min
Boil - 70F: 7 min

I thought that was pretty good. Way better than putting the kettle in an ice bath. Between boil and 100F I could watch the temp drop a couple of degrees every second or two.

I 3D printed myself a faucet adapter with a 3/8" barb. It worked well too, and saved me about $6. Here is a picture: