New to brewing from WA

[chappyman7]

Hey there everyone. Already made a few posts so I figured I should do this whole introduction thing.

Found a groupon for a beginner brew kit from Midwest so I bought it along with a Red Ale ingredients kit. Followed the instructions to the "T" and ended up with a quite delicious red ale and now I am completely hooked. Immediately started an apple ale kit from MW and started 15 gallons of apfelwein from EdWort's recipe(although, admittedly, the guy from the LHBS talked me into trying a cuvee yeast with one of the batches and I used brown sugar instead of dextrose).

I am already growing bored of extract brewing, but fear that I cannot afford the jump to all grain brewing. A friend of mine's father made himself a digitally controlled all-grain brewery in his garage so I am going to go watch him brew this weekend and see what I can learn. Nice to meet everyone and I hope this is the beginning of a long and fruitful hobby for me. Cheers!

 

[jholen]

welcome from Bellevue!

Look into Partial Mashes or Brew in a Bag (BIAB) for economical ways to get into semi-AG/AG brewing on the cheap! Both routes just require a small investment (talking anywhere from $20-50) in extra equipment, and it is pretty fun.

Lemme know if you have any questions. I'm fairly new myself, having only brewed three beers (brewing another today), and one batch of Apfelwein.

 

[chappyman7]

Ahhhh Bellevue... Spent many many drunken nights there. I have 3-4 good Wolverine friends! Thanks for the tips man I will look that up for sure!

 

[jholen]

Have you heard of Brew Brother's in Portland?

Heard it is a great shop for grains/etc

http://www.brewbrothers.biz/

Probably fairly close to ya, and might be worth the drive to get good deals on grains.

 

[chappyman7]

No, actually! I have been shopping at MW and Bader Brewing(http://baderbrewing.com/) but frankly Bader seems a tad overpriced based on my limited knowlege I will definitely check out Brew Brothers thanks again!