New brewer from Dallas

[Hanson]

Just getting started. My son gave me a Mr. Beer kit for Christmas which turned out ok but with a little more to be desired. Visited Homebrew Supply in Richardson and came home with a bigger kit. I want to go to an AG recipe next. Seems there is a lot of great info on this forum. This is a lot of fun.

 

[haussparker]

Hey there! Congrats on the new kit and welcome to brewing. Once you've brewed a batch or two its like a bug it gets you.

I have been brewing for a little more than a year now and when I first started I did extract only. There are two reasons I started this way 1: to really see if I enjoyed the process of brewing and if it tasted good, and 2: the all grain equipment is a large chunk of money and a bit more difficult to the novice or beginner.

I would suggest getting two or three batches under your belt of extract kits or even your own recipes before moving on. Doing this will do a few things and one is getting into a rhythm per say you'll learn with each batch you get more efficient and understand the why's and how comes better. Also you'll find the niche of your equipment like your burner, pot etc whether it likes to flame out or whatever and be able to adjust before it does whatever it does.

How familiar are you with brewing so far, have you done some reading or research into the all grain side?

 

[Hanson]

I have done some research on AG brewing. There must be 1001 different ways of doing it so I may do as you suggest and get a few extract type of brewing under my belt before tackleing the AG. I have a 5gal. Coopers lager fermenting right now. Should be ready to bottle in another week. The anticipation is driving me nuts. Thanks for your reply my friend.

 

[haussparker]

The anticipation is the thing that kills me as well but I've gotten better as I've brewed. Hey, if you think waiting is hard now wait until you get into lagering. I have two beers right now that are chill aging on their 6 month its so hard to wait but they are ready now thankfully. Another suggestion for your extract brewing, when I started my first batch was an American wheat and I went on and really tried a wide range from a cream ale to as dark as a stout and everything between. It was good because it opened my palate further, and gave a bunch of knowledge of different types of malts, specialty malts, sugars and hops it was great experience.