Another Texan (SETX)

[Awastatyme]

Hi everyone. I have been lurking on here for a while. Have done a lot of reading up on what to do and not do.
Going to try my hand at homebrewing today.
A buddy of mine that has done some brewing will be giving me a hand.
I have a BBS chestnut brown ale ( cant find any chestnuts so it will be just a brown ale)
Pictures will be taken since to show progress.

 

[Awastatyme]

The wort was really thick and reduced down even more while in the boil. Had to add half a gallon of water to fill up the the 1 gallon mark. Should be ok though right?

 

[hou_me]

What's your og?

 

[Awastatyme]

No clue. I don't have a hydrometer.

 

[hunter_le five]

Howdy and welcome!

It's normal to have to "top up" a batch if you boiled off too much water or only did a "partial boil". It should be fine provided you did everything else right.

Later on once you start to get the hang of things, you can work on doing full-boils and estimating you're boil-off rate so you can end the boil with the exact right volume, but starting off I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I would also recommend buying a hydrometer. They may not be 100% necessary, but they are damn useful.

 

[BrewTech117]

Welcome - and I would also second the Hydrometer Idea - I brewed a few batches with out one and than got one - made a huge difference. No more excessive waiting time, you can tell when its ready and move on to the next step.