First Batch!

[brewhammer]

Took the plunge and brewed my first batch yesterday - a porter recipe I drew up based on Palmer's 'How to Brew' style description chart. I was shooting for a brown porter, with an OG of 1.045 and 30 IBUs. Here's what I did:

Specialty Grains (Steeped in 3 gal at 160F for 30 min)
1 lb. Carafa II
1/2 lb. C40
1/2 lb. Special B

Base Malt (added after steeping specialty grains)
4 1/4 lb. DME

Hops
(60) 1 oz. Northern Brewer pellets (9.4% AA)
(10) 1 oz. East Kent Golding pellets (5% AA)

Added 2 gal. of pre boiled and cooled water at flameout, bringing the total batch size to 5 gal. Cooled the wort, strained into my fermenting bucket, and pulled a sample to test the OG. Hit exactly 1.045 that I had calculated! :rockin:

Pitched White Labs British Ale yeast at 72 F and woke up this morning to a nice krausen forming in the fermenter.

Very happy with how my first brew day went. Now the tough part - waiting!

 

[unionrdr]

Sounds like you had a textbook brew day. I love it when it all comes together so easily. Now to watch bubbles & sniff airlocks...

 

[Ogri]

Wow!!!!

You've got your **** wired!!!

That's one hell of an accomplished first brew session:rockin: Feeling like an underachiever by comparison

Here's to beer

 

[brewhammer]

Thanks, guys. Haven't seen any bubbles in the airlock yet, but the krausen is rocking and it smells 'yeasty' in that room. I'm thinking everything is as it should be.

 

[BigSally]

Congrats. I've yet to have an error free brewday.
It's usually something akin to a classic slapstick comedy

 

[brewhammer]

One week update - pulled a sample to see how fermentation was coming along. Wort was holding at 65F and SG is 1.012. My expected FG is around 1.0125, so it's close.

Color was good but cloudy - lots of stuff floating around. I'm assuming that it's yeasties that haven't dropped out yet?

So far, so good. Two-three more weeks in the bucket before I bottle em up.