My first brew day

[Big_Chin]

First off, thanks to this board for the great advice, threads, etc. I'm still trying to understand half of it but it's been great so far.

My first brew is a Bass clone, I figured it'd be a simple way to start off. Some questions though.

1. I got my water going and at 120 degrees added my grain bag. Do I need to wait for a certain temp or was this sufficient?

2. At around 215 degrees, I added my first hops and started my timer. 50 minutes later I added the fuggle hops. 10 minutes later, I turned the burner off and started the chiller. Does the time have to be an hour or can I extend it to say 90/120 minutes. I wasn't trying for an IPA, but just curious if it would have ruined the batch.

3. I forgot to take an initial gravity ready when I went from the boiler to the primary. Am I sol or can I pop off the lid to take it later on?

Thanks for all the great info and any answers to my questions.

 

[david_42]

1. Is ok. I don't like to leave grain bags in the kettle with the burner on, nylon melts.

2. Hop timing is very important and the timing is backwards from flameout. You can extend the beginning of a boil, but not the end. An aroma hop boiled for an extra 30 minutes is just another bittering add.

3. For extracts, taking an OG just isn't very important. You can take one up to the formation of the krausen. After that the yeasts are processing.