beginner wants to brew with us: recommendations?

[outside92129]

A virgin neighbor wants to join us for our next brew day and I'm debating what route to take him. Obviously we want to keep it as simple as possible, but would a SMASH be excessively hard? Should we go with an extract kit? We'll be doing 2-3 other all-grain batches that day and i don't want to have him think he got the baby-version, but i don't want to turn him off the "sport". He's got a taste for microbrews and a kegerator in the garage so he could easily be come a convert. Any suggestions?

 

[zacster]

The biggest problem with taking anybody through the process is the sheer amount of time spent waiting around. I have a friend that's helped me but he was only interested in sticking around when we made a brew that he was taking home, and I don't blame him.

Then there are the bottling/kegging steps that happen a few weeks later, and throw in racking to a secondary.

I've thought about doing my own homebrew class but could never figure out a way around this.

 

[RM-MN]

Do you want to teach him the ins and outs of all grain brewing or do you want to get him excited about doing his own? If you want him hooked on brewing you start with a partial boil extract kit and show how easy it can be to get decent drinkable beer. If he gets hooked, you can have him over again and teach about all grain and what opportunities for experimentation that brings.

 

[rklinck]

Why not just have him join you for the AG brew and explain to him that you can buy extract kits to take some work out? You could tell him about extract kits as you are draining the running into the boil kettle by saying something like: "You can buy malt extract kits that mean you don't have to do any of what we have done to this point."

 

[Shakybones]

If you could arrange it so that you have a batch to bottle while you are mashing or boiling, then you could avoid the "standing around" "problem" (standing around drinking beer and watching a kettle has never been a problem for me...). Plus, then he could see all the steps (secondary...meh).

Show him the whole AG experience and then explain that he can make good beer with extract if he wants to stick a toe in and test the waters (per rklinck above).

 

[Yooper]

I had a friend that wanted to learn to brew, so I just asked him if he wanted to see the entire AG process, or if he wanted to start with a kit (or just be around for the boil and hopping part). He wanted to see the whole process, so we did.

I'd say leave it up to him!

 

[duboman]

I have had several people join me to learn. I brew AG so that's what I do and nobody has been turned off by the lengthy process.

The standing around part is the time to have conversation about the various methods of brewing. And sampling....

I usually have some catalogues laying around so they can see the kits and equipment as well as book recommendations to read up on.

I now have several neighbors and friends that brew so we are a pretty busy neighborhood come brew days

 

[LouBrew13]

I taught a friend and his dad one day and did all three aspects in the same afternoon. As I was mashing I racked a beer to secondary. As I fly sparged we bottled a batch. Over kill? Perhaps but I answered a lot of questions and enlisted free help at the same time.

 

[Dirty25]

My first newbie I tought we did a all grain brew. We got wasted and he said he didn't remember the process. The beer turned out great. the next week we bottled a beer and brewed a extract batch for training. That was the start of a good bromance, we brewed many of beers together after that.

 

[NormPeterson]

Outsid92129 quote "Should we go with an extract kit? We'll be doing 2-3 other all-grain batches that day and i don't want to have him think he got the baby-version"

I would recommend an extract kit along with the all grain batches. You can show him the "baby version" and how you can literally make beer just by boiling, while at the same you will also be able to show him that AG is in no way scary and only involves an extra hour or so due to the Mashing process and how it will save 10-15 bucks every batch compared to using extract. Not to mention there are few better feelings in this world than turning a variety of plants into "sweet heavenly nectar".

 

[kingwood-kid]

If you're doing three batches in one day, just overlap them and have him come for batch #3. As soon as you mash, you can show what comes after the waiting on #2, and hopefully #3 is ready to pitch. It will be like the cooking shows where they throw a lasagna in an oven and take out a fully cooked one five minutes later.