It's go time!

[SkinnyShamrock]

Picked up the last of my items and my ingredients today. Very excited.

True Brew kit, a nice stainless kettle, 2 cases of bottles, caps, an auto-siphon, and my ingredients:

6 lbs amber dry extract
1 lb American pale two-row
.5 oz Chinook pellet
1 oz Cascade pellet
package of Fermentis Safale US-05 American ale yeast
corn sugar for priming

Here's the procedure I have:

1. Steep the two-row for 1 hour in 2 gallons of water at 155*
2. Remove grain bags, bring to boil, remove from heat, add extract until dissolved, then return to boil
3. Add .5 oz of Chinook bittering hops, boil for 1 hour
4. Add .5 oz of Cascade 15 minutes before end of boil, and remaining .5 oz 5 minutes until end
5. Cool to ~85*, strain into fermenter, aerate, fill with cool water to 5 gallon mark
6. Be sure temperature is ~75*, pitch yeast, and seal

I plugged all this into the TastyBrew recipe calculator and it gives me original gravity of 1.056, final gravity of 1.014, 32 IBU, and 5.4 ABV. I can't wait. Any comments/observations?

 

[FlyingHorse]

Looks good! Can't tell from the pic...is your grain crushed/cracked? If not, it should be.

Also, it's a little odd that the kit has just 2-row pale malt for your steeping (or actually, what you've described is more like a partial mash). Nothing wrong with it -- it should add some "fresh" grain flavors to the brew -- but steeping and PMs are usually designed to incorporate some colors and flavors from specialty grains.

Anyway, RDWHAHB. Looks like a good brew, and I'm sure it will be delicious. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[Liquidicem]

Looks like your all set. Welcome to the party!

 

[SkinnyShamrock]

The grain is crushed/ground up, it's pretty coarse, so I hope it doesn't need to finely-ground.

It isn't a kit...I knew I wanted to make a pale or amber ale (my favorite of any kind of commercial beer), so I played around with the recipe calculator on TastyBrew.com until I came up something that worked. That extra grain added a bit of weight, the IBUs fell a bit, and increased the ABV slightly.

I hear you about the flavors and colors...it would probably turn out well if I just left that grain out. Just an experiment, I guess.

 

[blacklab]

Also, it's a little odd that the kit has just 2-row pale malt for your steeping (or actually, what you've described is more like a partial mash). Nothing wrong with it -- it should add some "fresh" grain flavors to the brew -- but steeping and PMs are usually designed to incorporate some colors and flavors from specialty grains.

I thought the same thing. Your beer should be fine this time around. But next time, you might want to ask them to throw in some specialty grains to steep as well. Usually 2 row is only included if you are partial mashing - the specialty grains need the 2 row to help with conversion.

Have fun and be careful - brewing is a gateway drug...to more brewing

 

[brett]

Just put the 2-row in a pot with 5 cups of water, bring the temp up to 150F and hold it there for 15 minutes. Then pour the whole works through the strainer into the big pot, maybe rinse them with a little hot water, and you should be good to go.

 

[HOOTER]

The grain is crushed/ground up, it's pretty coarse, so I hope it doesn't need to finely-ground.

It definitely does not need to be finely ground. It sounds like it's ready to go as is.

 

[Revvy]

A lot of kits are adding 2 row to the steeping grains nowadays, including AHS...I asked Forrest about it awhile back.

We added 2-row to all of our kits. 2-row has enzymes that (in theory) help "convert" more sugars and flavor out of the specialty grains. It is a good idea to add a little to every recipe. If you read about 2-row and mashing. it has nothing to do with getting the sugars out of the 1/2 pound of 2 row added. We add it for the enzymes and not the sugar. If you were trying to convert the sugars of the 2-row then you would need to steep it longer. If you follow the instructions you will be ok.

Forrest

So just steep them all together.

 

[BierMuncher]

Gotta love a new brewer with a camera.

Take pics of the brew session and post em up.

 

[SkinnyShamrock]

Gotta love a new brewer with a camera.

Take pics of the brew session and post em up.

Oh, I will. Photobucket is awesome. I drafted my girlfriend to help me with the boil Sunday, so she'll be the photographer as well. Hopefully there will be no disaster pictures