First brew...

[Shawnstve]

So this is what I’ve got for my beer that I planned on brewing soon. I’ve got a breiss 2 row pale ale grain, with Cryo Hops LupuLN2 Cascade Hop Pellets, and mauribrew ale 514 yeast. I was going off of this recipe but got the wrong yeast. https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/263557/easy-blonde-ale

I don’t have the caramel/crystal malt it is Suggesting, how much do you think that is needed? Like what would happen if I add the same amount of 2 row more to equal the total grain. Then also use this yeast from mauribrew? I know some of you seasoned people are probably gritting your teeth at this. It’s my first brew and I figure mistakes will be made. If the beer comes out not all that great but drinkable, I’m happy. And if I like doing this I’ll buy better suited grains for specific beers. But if I do the above mentioned with what I’ve got on hand, with a brew in a bag thing and a 1 gallon brew, what do you guys think? Will it turn out ok? Like what could I expect? Think it will be a skunk and I’ll have to toss it?

 

[Shawnstve]

Also, with using a different yeast should I change how much to add? In fact I don’t understand really how much to add even if I had the correct yeast. It talks about billions of cells. How do I calculate? Haha!

 

[McKnuckle]

Without the crystal malt it's what's referred to as a SMaSH beer, or Single Malt & Single Hop. It is an extremely simple recipe, obviously, not likely to be extremely flavorful, but nothing wrong with that for a first try. I did the same thing for my first brew.

As to whether it will come out okay; that's entirely up to you! The ingredients will not be a major factor in that. It's up to you to provide proper fermentation temperature, allow the beer to fully ferment and settle before bottling, and avoid exposing and poking at it repeatedly because you're curious, which will oxidize the beer (or infect it, far less likely, but it's still a risk).

Brew in a bag is a great, straightforward way to brew all grain beer. A one gallon batch is a good call, as you won't have 50+ bottles of mediocre beer to slog through. Once the novelty of "I made my own beer!" wears off, you will not be nearly as enthused by sheer quantity until you actually make consistently good/great beer.

First time brewers often rush through the process, spooked by everything. They hurry to pitch yeast because they're afraid of infection, so in it goes at 80ºF. They shrug off temperature recommendations and put the fermenter in a 70º room. They transfer to a secondary fermenter because kits and recipes say to do so. They are impatient to bottle, asking over and over "Can I bottle yet?" They are sloppy with bottling, transferring trub into the bottles. They are fixated on hitting a precise gravity, or a precise volume, looking to "fix" miscalculations in mid-flow. And they try too many advanced techniques like dry hopping, adding fruit, adding sugar to boost ABV, etc. etc.

Don't do those things.

So... I think you're on the right track with your BIAB 1 gallon SMASH! Keep it simple, keep it clean, follow the wisdom you'll find repeated ad nauseum to new brewers on these forum pages.

 

[Shawnstve]

I did the same thing for my first brew.
too many advanced techniques like dry hopping, adding fruit, adding sugar to boost ABV, etc. etc.

Don't do those things.

So... I think you're on the right track with your BIAB 1 gallon SMASH! Keep it simple, keep it clean, follow the wisdom you'll find repeated ad nauseum to new brewers on these forum pages.

yeah I don’t plan on anything advanced. As for hops, when you say dry hopping, I’ve got hop pellets, hope that’s ok.... they are dry not wet. Anyway, I’m sure it doesn’t mean the actual amount of water in it.... I need to learn all this terminology. As for that yeast what do you think about it in combo with the rest of the above ingredients? The wyeast they recommend I read makes a very crisp flavor, and the one I’ve got is like the opposite, better for heavier beers I read.
As for temperatures, I will drop the temp to add yeast, but I live in a house that is a consistent 75 degrees. I cannot change that. Planned on putting it in a small bucket and putting some water at the bottom and a shirt over it to wick up onto the carboy and hopefully cool it down a bit. Nothing I can do about that though, wife won’t let me drop the thermostat. But I’ll make sure and pitch at the temp it recommends. Hopefully it does ok, as I read this yeast can handle some higher temps, but will throw off fruity flavors. We shall see I guess.

 

[Harleybrew32]

freeze some water bottles and drop them in the bucket twice a day, that will help too.
dry hops are just adding them at the end of fermentation, in simple terms.
make sure everything is clean and sanitize everything, then sanitize it again.
my first batch was ruined since i didnt follow the directions for the sanitizer.
good luck and let us know how it goes.
cheers

 

[jrgtr42]

You'll be fine with what you have. It won't be exactly what the recipe shows, but that's half the fun of homebrewing; taking a recipe and tweaking it to your own tastes (and to what you have on hand...)
Like McKnuckle said, this can become a good beer - or if you're really adventurous, you can toast the grains a little - into an oven at low heat, basically until you can smell it (actually, this is best if you have unmilled grain to start with - I don't know how well it would work with milled)
Really the most important parts of brewing is sanitation, yeast health / happiness, sanitation, temperature control, sanitation and sanitation.

 

[Shawnstve]

I really am not sure I’m able to do the water bottle thing. I’m in a small apartment with a small freezer and kids. The freezer is packed with pizza rolls and junk for the kids. Before we got the corona lockdown notice the wife stocked up really way too much. So we have no room in there to freeze bottles, hope it will be ok with the t shirt thing.

Jrg, I have a mill and un-milled 2-pale, well not like a stone mill for fine flower, but a heavier grind one. It is a cheap one I got on amazon for $40 something. We got it to make our own bread When we heard we are going on lockdown. The wife got super stocked up like I said, but not just with the freezer stuff. Haha! I used this opportunity to buy stuff to make beer, and she agreed! Go figure! Took a pandemic to get her to agree with me. lol. I’ll try toasting some before milling it. Like do I toast it all? Or just a small amount? What will it do? Add a smoky flavor? Or more of a baked bread type thing?

 

[McKnuckle]

Don’t toast the malt. Just mill it and brew as is. Toasting malt is exactly the kind of thing I referred to when I discussed advanced techniques. This is your first brew ever, and you don’t even have an ideal fermentation environment for it. Just follow the recipe as is for now. I promise you: It will make beer.

The yeast is some sort of English ale yeast, by the way. Hopefully it will endure those warm temps, but 10°F cooler would be a safer bet. Do the best you can.

 

[Shawnstve]

Don’t toast the malt. Just mill it and brew as is. Toasting malt is exactly the kind of thing I referred to when I discussed advanced techniques. This is your first brew ever, and you don’t even have an ideal fermentation environment for it. Just follow the recipe as is for now. I promise you: It will make beer.

The yeast is some sort of English ale yeast, by the way. Hopefully it will endure those warm temps, but 10°F cooler would be a safer bet. Do the best you can.

ok yeah I won’t toast... and for the heat, I heard it does ok at higher temps up to 77 but will release some fruit flavor, we shall find out. I’ll let ya know what happens. I plan on brewing in 2 weeks. Oh and my local home brew place had the crystal so I’m gonna pick it up. I had forgotten to last time. Problem is it’s very much a in and out type of thing, no chatting. So hard to ask questions and all. I appreciate your help here.

 

[ncbrewer]

Jrg, I have a mill and un-milled 2-pale, well not like a stone mill for fine flower, but a heavier grind one. It is a cheap one I got on amazon for $40 something.

Some of the Corona style mills are really poor quality and need some modifications to get them to work right. I had to align the plates on mine. Test it before you start milling your grain. Maybe buy a pound extra for experimenting. And if you're not sure how fine to grind, check some pictures on line. Good luck.

 

[Shawnstve]

Some of the Corona style mills are really poor quality and need some modifications to get them to work right. I had to align the plates on mine. Test it before you start milling your grain. Maybe buy a pound extra for experimenting. And if you're not sure how fine to grind, check some pictures on line. Good luck.

Thanks, will do.

 

[Shawnstve]

Some of the Corona style mills are really poor quality and need some modifications to get them to work right. I had to align the plates on mine. Test it before you start milling your grain. Maybe buy a pound extra for experimenting. And if you're not sure how fine to grind, check some pictures on line. Good luck.

So I was able to grind with the mill, it’s a Victoria and worked quite well. It seemed to be about the size of what I see online. The crystal malt I got from the home brew place I asked them to grind it for me, and I tried to match that. Now I will say mine had a little more dust/flour in it than theirs. And maybe the pieces were slightly smaller, but it did ok. I will do a courser grind next time. But it seemed to work. My first brew is off and away. I already posted this pic on another thread but here it is.

 

[RM-MN]

So I was able to grind with the mill, it’s a Victoria and worked quite well. It seemed to be about the size of what I see online. The crystal malt I got from the home brew place I asked them to grind it for me, and I tried to match that. Now I will say mine had a little more dust/flour in it than theirs. And maybe the pieces were slightly smaller, but it did ok. I will do a courser grind next time. But it seemed to work. My first brew is off and away. I already posted this pic on another thread but here it is.

The typical LHBS mills the grain coarser than needed for BIAB because a lot of their customers are using a conventional mash tun and milling finer gets some of them a stuck mash and they complain. Since you are using a bag (BIAB) you don't have those limitations so don't try to copy what the LHBS does. It won't hurt your beer a bit to have more dust and smaller particles. What it will do is improve the efficiency and allow you to extract more flavor with less grain. Take advantage of the BIAB process and mill your grains as fine as you can, then learn to adjust recipes to account for the improved efficiency.

 

[Shawnstve]

Oh really? With this mill I can almost turn it into flour. Should I do that? I think though at that point it won’t hold in the bag, never mind. Haha!