On the way to completing first 'starter kit'. What next?

[progressive]

I am a few days into fermenting my first ever batch. Approximately four litres of Brewsmith Hoppy Heart IPA. All seems to be going well. I have the basic equipment including a five litre demijohn fermenter, hoses, bungs, airlocks etc.

As the novelty is very much there and I am super impatient I would like to get another batch into the fermenter as soon as this one comes out!

So the question is, what next? Not so much what beer but what format. Another starter pack or do I go for a 'recipe', where I assume I would source the ingredients from a local brew shop?

Any suggestions or advice on where to head next? Will it be a pain to source such small quantities of ingredients for a five litre batch?

 

[Psylocide]

I am a few days into fermenting my first ever batch. Approximately four litres of Brewsmith Hoppy Heart IPA. All seems to be going well. I have the basic equipment including a five litre demijohn fermenter, hoses, bungs, airlocks etc.

As the novelty is very much there and I am super impatient I would like to get another batch into the fermenter as soon as this one comes out!

So the question is, what next? Not so much what beer but what format. Another starter pack or do I go for a 'recipe', where I assume I would source the ingredients from a local brew shop?

Any suggestions or advice on where to head next? Will it be a pain to source such small quantities of ingredients for a five litre batch?

How big is your boil kettle?

 

[rodwha]

Small quantities mean nothing if you can mill your grains. There are small inexpensive mills that can handle your specialty grains, though you may not want to do base malts with it (time and energy involved, and possibly the quality of the machine?). For now you'd need to use spray malt (DME) until you learn to mash (assuming you don't yet) unless you can buy exact amounts of LME.

You can go to a bakery and ask if they have any food grade buckets from icing. I have some that can handle about 6.5 L. All for free...

 

[Psylocide]

You don't even need a mill, I used a blender to crush 12 lbs of grain... took me about an hour and got an awesome crush for my BIAB brew.

I would suggest you go all grain and don't look back, it's so much less intimidating that it seems. If you have a boil kettle that is around 3.5- 5 gal, I wouldn't hesitate to switch to All grain BIAB, start with a simple recipe and work up from there (BM's Centennial Blonde comes to mind). Just adjust for your target QTY.

It'll be about half the cost of extract batches that aren't overly hoppy.

 

[rodwha]

"...I used a blender to crush 12 lbs of grain..."

You'd be tearing up the husks, which would be bad for sparging, but more importantly for tannin extraction. Maybe there's something I'm unaware of. I'm certainly no expert.

 

[Psylocide]

"...I used a blender to crush 12 lbs of grain..."

You'd be tearing up the husks, which would be bad for sparging, but more importantly for tannin extraction. Maybe there's something I'm unaware of. I'm certainly no expert.

There were a lot of husks intact, some flour, but mostly each grain was ~5-6 pieces.

I pulsed about a cup at a time, 4-5 times.

We'll see if tannin extraction is an issue, but the wort tasted nice and sweet, no bitterness of note pre-boil. I did BIAB, so dunk sparged, no issues there.

 

[rodwha]

I've done what you did with my soft white wheat berries. It works OK for that, but there's no husk issue, though there is a slow/stuck sparge potential.

I do BIAB, but I use a colander to sparge with, and I have had sparge issues.

 

[RM-MN]

"...I used a blender to crush 12 lbs of grain..."

You'd be tearing up the husks, which would be bad for sparging, but more importantly for tannin extraction. Maybe there's something I'm unaware of. I'm certainly no expert.

If you keep your pH in the right range you won't extract tannins. Keep it under 6.0.

For BIAB, there shouldn't be any issue with sparging as you are depending on the bag to be the filter medium. I set my bag of grains inside a colander that sits in a plastic bowl. When I sparge, I open the top of the bag and use a spoon to make a depression in the grains and pour the sparge water in there, then stir it in and add more until I have my volume.

 

[PatrickLS83]

Wow, from beginner kit to milling practices to pH balance, this thread has escalated quickly.

First of all, congrats on brewing your first beer and welcome to your new obsession

Your kit is what's called an extract + specialty grains kit. These are the best types of kits because you get a base malt (maybe a little crystal malt) from your extract and some extra flavor from your specialty grains which you steep before boiling. I had many good experiences with these kits. Thing is, most of the kits out there are geared toward 5 gallon batches, you just happened upon a smaller kit. I'm gonna venture a guess that you're already thinking about scaling up from this 1 gallon batch system. I would suggest you find a local homebrew store or check out a website like morebeer.com or northernbrewer.com and look for a 6-gallon carboy, airlock, siphon, bottling bucket. A kit like this is what I'm talking about: http://www.morebeer.com/products/personal-home-brewery-kit-2-deluxe.html

Then get yourself a few extract + specialty grain 5 gallon kits and knock yourself out, haha. Later you can start thinking about all grain, BIAB, crush setting, pH levels, etc. but honestly I would not worry about all that right now, just have fun

ps. Don't crush grains in a blender. Most kits come with pre-crushed grains or if you have a homebrew store close by I'm sure they'll crush them for you.

 

[Brew_G]

It shouldn't be an issue to get ingredients for any sized recipe. In fact, it should be pretty simple to get them for small batches if you have an HBS nearby. Whether you're doing extract with steeping grains or all-grain, you should be able to buy all the extract and grains you need for small batches, and most HBSs have mills that you can use to kill your grain. If not, and you're doing extract, then crushing your steeping grains with a rolling pin or the like should be a cinch for small batches. And for (liquid) yeast you should be able to make a starter then split the starter up into various jars/vessels for future use.

I did one extract/steeping grains kit before jumping into BIAB and my own recipes. It was an easy transition, and I've since bought hops and grains in bulk, as well as my own mill. I also have been splitting my starters into separate jars for future use, so I don't need to rely on getting new yeast every time I want to brew.

Good luck...I hope the feedback helps!