Advices needed

[jayvie]

Hi,

I'm gonna do my first brew this weekend and I'm looking for all the advices that you guys can give me. We are brewing an IPA with Cascade and nugget. We have a 15 gallons mashtun and a 15 gallons brewing kettle. We also have a minibrew conical fermenter.

Thank you!

 

[ElJefeBrews]

Clean and sanitize properly, sparge appropriately, CONTROL FERMENTATION TEMPS!, let sit long enough in fermentor to clear, have a backup hydrometer, drink the beer.

Did I miss anything?

 

[ElJefeBrews]

Also, expect to mess up at least some aspects of your first couple or few beers. Are you doing all grain or extract?

 

[jayvie]

We're going all grain!

 

[fuelish]

Clean and sanitize properly, sparge appropriately, CONTROL FERMENTATION TEMPS!, let sit long enough in fermentor to clear, have a backup hydrometer, drink the beer.

Did I miss anything?

Backup hydrometer is always a great idea......if you have a spare, chances are you'll never need it, and if you don't have a spare, your hydrometer will get broken at a most inopportune moment....just the way it goes, sometimes

 

[flars]

Go over the procedure for monitoring mash temperature. Use hot water, 152°F, in the mash tun to estimate heat loss for the time of the mash.

 

[myndflyte]

Be sure to preheat your mashtun with some boiling water prior to adding your strike water. Calculate out how high you need to heat your strike water based on your grain bill. Write all this down and the step by step procedures down. The last thing you want to do is try to go from memory and miss steps.