Newbie!! Need a Walk Through on a Recipe

[Bruno2]

Hi, I am brand new to the forum. I want to brew some beer. I barely know the first thing about it.

I think I want to brew this recipe:
http://www.brew365.com/beer_great_divide_yeti_stout.php

However, I am really not sure about the terminology and processes. A buddy and myself have possibly the basics.

All Grain Recipe - Gread Divide Yeti Imperial Stout ::: 1.093/1.020 (5.5 Gal)
Grain Bill (72% Efficiency assumed)
17 lbs. - 2 Row Pale Malt (US)
1.5 lb. - Flaked Rye (or wheat) Malt
3/4 lb. - Black Patent Malt (500 L)
3/4 lb. - Chocolate Malt (450 L)
10 oz. - Roasted Barley (300 L)

Hop Schedule (75 IBU)
1.5 oz. - Chinook [13%] (60 min.)
1.5 oz. - Chinook [13%] (15 min.)
1 oz. - Chinook [13%] (5 min.)
Yeast
White Labs Amerian Ale (WLP001) / Wyeast 1056 / Fermentis S-05
1 to 1.5 L starter of Liquid yeast or 1.75 packs of Dry yeast.

Mash/Sparge/Boil
Mash at 153° for 60 min.
Sparge as usual
Cool and ferment at 68°

Notes
Loosely Based from a Recipe in BYO but changed for simplicity
and to match the beer's specs on their website.

So I would imagine that I boil 5.5 gallons of water. Put the grain in a bag and boil it? Hop it as directed?

How is a mash performed?

 

[mxstar21]

I would not recommend starting out with this recipe. I would start with a smaller extract recipe with steeping grains rather than jumping in feet first with an all-grain batch. What type of equipment do you own? Do you feel comfortable making a yeast starter?

You do not boil the grains. I recommend buying a how to brew book or look online.

Extract recipes are much easier to start out with and require less equipment. However, BIAB is method you could research and make all-grain batches with essentially the same equipment for an extract batch.

 

[LLBeanJ]

That's quite a recipe for your first attempt. It could easily be done by someone who has taken the time to read a couple books, watch a bunch of YouTube vids, and lurk on this forum for a short while to find all the answers to the many questions that will come up.

You're going to need some equipment...

A large boil kettle. 8 gallons minimum, but I'd recommend 12 to 15 gal.
A way to heat 8 gallons of water to a boil. Your kitchen stove won't do it.
A way to cool 5.5 gallons of boiling hot wort to <70°F.
Something to mash in. It could be your kettle if you go the BIAB route, or you'll need a ice chest that has been fitted with a valve and some sort of filtering manifold so that you can drain the wort after the mash is done and leave the grain behind.
An accurate thermometer.
Something to ferment in.
A bottling bucket and 50+ 12 oz bottles + bottle caps and a bottle capper.
An understanding of your water chemistry or plan to use bottled water.
Sanitizer and an understanding of basic sanitization principles as they relate to brewing.

Even for a simple extract brew, you will need most of the above. You won't need to worry about mashing and you could get by with a 5 gal boil kettle, boil on your kitchen stove, and cool with ice and cold water in the kitchen sink, but you'll need the rest.

 

[TipsySaint]

and when he says cool with ice he means around the pot not in the pot. an immersion chiller is super helpful, but if you have a bath tub that you can get to with a hot kettle full of recently boiled napalm you might be ok....I did it that way for years....

 

[Bruno2]

Ok..... So I did some video watching. This is pretty involved. I need to make some additional equipment like a sparge tun.

I see how a mash is made now. I have friends that brew and have helped them years ago. I probably shouldnt start with this recipe as metioned. However, I do believe this will be my goal here before too long.

The extract recipes do sound easier.

 

[Calder]

Do an extract batch with steeping grains. Do a beer with an OG of around 1.050 - 1.060; that will get you a decent Pale Ale. Partial boil (3 to 3.5 gallons) in a 5 gallon pot on your stove.

This will teach you a lot about the boil, hop additions, cooling, fermenting, etc.

Then think about what you need to go bigger for subsequent beers.

 

[bernardsmith]

Or you could start with all grain but you could begin with 1 gallon recipes and you probably have all the pots and heating equipment you need in your kitchen. There are a couple of books (see http://www.amazon.com/dp/1605291331/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20, for example) that focus on single gallon batches and they offer IMO, a good introduction to brewing. Downside is that 1 gallon makes only about 10 bottles but upside is that you can make 10 bottles without a great deal of stress or expense and you may be brewing at least once a week... and when you brew in 1 gallon batches (in my opinion) you really learn how to brew because you quickly and easily see the relationship between basic grains and specialty grains, between temperature and sweetness, between boil time and hop bitterness (utilization) in a way that brewing 5 or 10 gallons encourages you to focus more on the equipment than on the brewing itself... My 1 cent...

 

[chawn]

I say you go for it. But I suggest you do some serious reading prior to brew day. It's fairly simple if you can follow direction.

 

[Backslide]

All grain is simple via biab. No need to waist time doing extract. I would follow the above advice and do a 1 gallon batch stove top 1st. This will help you get the hang of things.