Hi all,
I want you all to know that I really appreciate all the advice that has been offered in my first few months on this forum. I had done a tiny bit of homebrewing about a decade ago but forgot all that I had learned. After having an epiphany and picking way too many apples last fall and being walked through the babysteps of my first cider, it's really been a lot of fun and learning.
On the beer side of things, my first batch of beer in 10 years is in the fermenter - it's from a Northern Brewer extract recipe kit (Sierra Madre pale ale, if anybody is curious). I don't know if it's the DIY spirit of it all or what, but I am interested in experimenting with all-grain, maybe with a BIAB for my next batch and after that maybe look at getting some more specialized equipment together.
What I'm wondering about - there seems to be huge learning curve between following the directions on a recipe kit that someone has assembled for you and doing what all the really experienced brewers on here seem to be doing - calculating efficiency, IBUs, entering things into BeerSmith, etc. Heck, knowing how much/what kind of grain to use, what certain hops are good for, what should or shouldn't go into certain beers, etc. Looking at what seems to be an abstract recipe and making sense of it. In all my lurking on these forums, I haven't found much middle ground. It seems that the people posting are either very new to the hobby, like myself, or possess a very advanced fund of knowledge.
So my question is, how did you learn when you were getting started, how did you bridge that knowledge gap? At the moment I'm in grad school and have a hard enough time finding a spare Saturday where I have time to commit to bottling a batch, but I am committed to learning this stuff at my own pace. As always I appreciate any insight!
I want you all to know that I really appreciate all the advice that has been offered in my first few months on this forum. I had done a tiny bit of homebrewing about a decade ago but forgot all that I had learned. After having an epiphany and picking way too many apples last fall and being walked through the babysteps of my first cider, it's really been a lot of fun and learning.
On the beer side of things, my first batch of beer in 10 years is in the fermenter - it's from a Northern Brewer extract recipe kit (Sierra Madre pale ale, if anybody is curious). I don't know if it's the DIY spirit of it all or what, but I am interested in experimenting with all-grain, maybe with a BIAB for my next batch and after that maybe look at getting some more specialized equipment together.
What I'm wondering about - there seems to be huge learning curve between following the directions on a recipe kit that someone has assembled for you and doing what all the really experienced brewers on here seem to be doing - calculating efficiency, IBUs, entering things into BeerSmith, etc. Heck, knowing how much/what kind of grain to use, what certain hops are good for, what should or shouldn't go into certain beers, etc. Looking at what seems to be an abstract recipe and making sense of it. In all my lurking on these forums, I haven't found much middle ground. It seems that the people posting are either very new to the hobby, like myself, or possess a very advanced fund of knowledge.
So my question is, how did you learn when you were getting started, how did you bridge that knowledge gap? At the moment I'm in grad school and have a hard enough time finding a spare Saturday where I have time to commit to bottling a batch, but I am committed to learning this stuff at my own pace. As always I appreciate any insight!