Nicksbrew
Member
Hey all
I've read a bunch of posts over the past few weeks and finally deicided to say hello. Hello! Anyway, my wife bought me a Mr. Beer for a christmas present from someone on Ebay, and when the guy finally decided to send it to us, had expired ingredients! Expired may be an understatement...these ingredients were 4 years old! Best thing that could have happened to me. The can of malt extract was bulging. So, I decided to chuck the whole thing and find a local homebrew store! I made myself a simple Pale Ale with some steeped Crystal malt and Cascade hops...We had a party and everyone drank up all my beer! Since then, I've upgraded to a standard 5 gallon extract setup (Ale Pail, Glass carboy, auto siphon, etc) and it's been great!
I recently had an enlightening experience...I had brewed up my first IPA (well, really it's a pretty hoppy Pale Ale, because it's not dry hopped, and it's extract based with a partial boil, so the IBU's can't get too high) and it was okay. It had some kind of bite to it (fusels) and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it, but it was quite tasty, and I drank the whole thing pretty young (2 weeks in bottle). Or so I thought! There was one bottle that ended up at my mom's house in New Jersey, and there it sat until last weekend. When I drank it, there was no fusel taste, it had cleared up, perfect head retention...all in all it was a whole new beer! Needless to say, the next batch that's in the bottles right now are sitting way longer before I drink them!
I just tried my first partial mash, 4.5lb pale 2-row, .5lb carapils, mashed in a grain bag on my stove...extraction rate was miserable (~55%), but I had planned on a nice wheat beer for some friends for summer, so not really a complete loss. Can't wait to try it! Gonna have a big 4th of July party to drink both brews!
Cheers!
-Nick
I've read a bunch of posts over the past few weeks and finally deicided to say hello. Hello! Anyway, my wife bought me a Mr. Beer for a christmas present from someone on Ebay, and when the guy finally decided to send it to us, had expired ingredients! Expired may be an understatement...these ingredients were 4 years old! Best thing that could have happened to me. The can of malt extract was bulging. So, I decided to chuck the whole thing and find a local homebrew store! I made myself a simple Pale Ale with some steeped Crystal malt and Cascade hops...We had a party and everyone drank up all my beer! Since then, I've upgraded to a standard 5 gallon extract setup (Ale Pail, Glass carboy, auto siphon, etc) and it's been great!
I recently had an enlightening experience...I had brewed up my first IPA (well, really it's a pretty hoppy Pale Ale, because it's not dry hopped, and it's extract based with a partial boil, so the IBU's can't get too high) and it was okay. It had some kind of bite to it (fusels) and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it, but it was quite tasty, and I drank the whole thing pretty young (2 weeks in bottle). Or so I thought! There was one bottle that ended up at my mom's house in New Jersey, and there it sat until last weekend. When I drank it, there was no fusel taste, it had cleared up, perfect head retention...all in all it was a whole new beer! Needless to say, the next batch that's in the bottles right now are sitting way longer before I drink them!
I just tried my first partial mash, 4.5lb pale 2-row, .5lb carapils, mashed in a grain bag on my stove...extraction rate was miserable (~55%), but I had planned on a nice wheat beer for some friends for summer, so not really a complete loss. Can't wait to try it! Gonna have a big 4th of July party to drink both brews!
Cheers!
-Nick
