New to brewing

[thawk86CO]

I got a brewers best deluxe brew kit. I also picked up an American Pale Wheat ingredient kit. I'm hesitating getting started, I don't want to screw it up. Any advice for me? This is everything in the kit:



I also have a propane banjo burner and bottles. What else will I need? Thanks in advance

 

[Hello]

You're going to be okay. Follow most of the directions but where they tell you to rack the beer to secondary,if they say that, don't bother. Leave your beer for 2 weeks then take a gravity reading using your hydrometer.

Have fun and read up on some of the forums. Also, grab a copy of How to brew. It is a wonderful resource.

 

[thawk86CO]

Thanks

 

[thawk86CO]

What does rack the beer to secondary mean?

 

[zefbrew]

Racking to secondary means transferring your beer out of the primary fermenter ( the one that you add yeast to), into a newly sanitised fermenter to try make the beer clearer. For the first few batches you make, don't transfer , leave it in the same fermenter. Less hassle until you got your bearings in brewing

 

[thawk86CO]

So if I fermented for 2 weeks in the primary, then bottled and waited another week, that would be racking to the secondary?

 

[zefbrew]

No. Once the beer is in the bottle, this is referred to as bottle conditioning.

Primary fermentation refers to the fermentation that occurs in the first fermenter you transfer your wort from the boil kettle / pot.
Secondary fermentation refers to an optional but not required process of transferring the beer after some time into a completely different fermentor. This is to try clear the beer. Not a required step and I suggest you skip this until you have some more brewing experience. I personally have never used secondary fermentation.
Read about it on this site
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter8-2-3.html
I suggest you read the whole chapter about extract brewing.

Also, the term racking basically means transferring beer from one vessel to another. So if you rack from the pot into the fermenter, this means to transfer this beer into the fermenter from the pot using a tube.

My suggestion to you is the following
1. Ferment in your brew bucket /carboy for 2 weeks.
2. Bottle the beer. (Look at how to add sugar to the bottles or bottling bucket, this is referred to as sugar priming)
3 wait at least 1 week, I suggest 2 weeks.
4. Chill and enjoy

Hope this helped

 

[flars]

What is the brand name of the American Pale Wheat kit. We could look up the brewing instructions and offer advice based on how they are written.