My First Brew

[alex_wilkosz]

Well hello all, I decided to join the brewing world and have found this site now. I must clue all my future mentors into my trials and tribulations so far:

It starts in January, I got a beginners kit from Northern Brewer, and a few other things. February 14 was my first brew, a Belgian White Ale. It ended up a bit darker than i had planned, but was quite good, ended up with an alcohol content of about 12%.

Since then I have not brewed again, sadly, summer was terrible working full time to save money for graduate school.

But alas! I have now purchased another carboy to have 2, and I have ordered 2 more kits. An English Brown Ale and an American Ale and will likely brew both in the next few weeks to get my carboys filled up and bubbling!

I look forward to my teacher's (you all) advise and leadership!

 

[devaspawn]

You must be a natural! It's really hard to brew a good beer with that high an ABV beer. I have brewed over 30 batches and only tried it a couple batches ago. Congrats man!!!!

 

[FishinDave07]

Holy F$@!, 12%?! What was the recipe like? You must've had some serious yeast there.

 

[alex_wilkosz]

ill be honest, i do not remember the exact yeast, but it was a different one than the recipe called for

 

[Professor Frink]

Welcome to the obsession. Don't worry, you'll still brew in grad school, I've done over 50 batches while working on my PhD.

 

[alex_wilkosz]

bump bump bump

 

[mnadamn]

you did do a glorious job hitting 12% on your first brew... i think i will have to share teh captins daughter recepie with you.... nothing like trying for 22% and i know you like it

 

[eschatz]

Congrats on the beer!!!! What are you studying at U of I? I've got quite a few friends in the college of music over there.

 

[alex_wilkosz]

Architecture dude

 

[Yooper]

I've never heard of a 12% ABV Belgian White! How was it?

 

[eschatz]

sweet, you need to engineer yourself a sweet ass ferm chamber!

 

[alex_wilkosz]

yeah..i do! im trying to find a cheap chest freezer down here if possible..otherwise ill use my ingenuity to build a cabinet.....

and my 12% alchy content Belgian Ale---Beautiful! i had help from my friend who is posting on here as well. adam. but it turned out great....a bit darker than a normal Beligian actually, not sure why, i know we added more honey than we were supposed to, but im guessin that helped with the content to be higher, it turned out great! PROST!

 

[alex_wilkosz]

yooper - pretty darn good....it ended up darker that would normal. but it was darn good..still got about 15 bottles of it..id share if anyone were located near me here