daveyeah
Active Member
Hi all,
So I started brewing January of this year. My first three beers were unimpressive, and I currently have a half batch of beer going that I think I'll putting into a secondary later this week.
My very first beer was a Coopers Wheat kit from their "master brewer" set. The beer was okay, but I was definitely a bit of a let down.
The second one was what Coopers was calling a lager. It came with the fermentation kit I got for Christmas; it was an LME, and some kind of "brewers sugar". The yeast was something that they claimed would be similar to a lager yeast; I didn't really question this. This beer also left me wanting; the beer was thin and all it was good for was a buzz.
The third beer was a "nut brown ale." I had high hopes for this one because I went to a LHBS and asked the proprietor for a brown or brown ale with some hoppiness to it, thinking part of the reason I didn't like my previous beers was because there was little flavor other than maltiness. He set me up with some nut brown extract that he said was pre-hopped, some DME, and I was on my way.
This was probably my least favorite one so far; it had no body, definitely no hop notes, it smelled a little funny (perhaps because of my using bleach as a sanitizer and not rinsing well enough), and I couldn't wait to get rid of it. I also blame high fermenting temperatures for some weird smells; it seemed to hit FG in about two days.
Enter a long hot summer in a poorly air conditioned apartment plus a bit of discouragement == No homebrewing.
I finally brewed up my fourth beer about two weeks ago. I went to another LHBS and specifically told him that I wanted to make an ale that was as similar to a Sam Adams Boston Lager as an ale could get.
After telling me to adjust my expectations (I already had; I more just wanted to use the lager as a hops reference more than anything else, as its a beer I'm familiar with), he set me up with an LME, and some things I hadn't experienced before: a bag of crushed grains, two ounces of hops, and a specific schedule for those hops. I felt like a real brewer.
I'm looking at this as a learning beer: after my three prior experiences I specifically made only 2.5 gallons (as opposed the six gallon batches prior); that way if I make another bland batch I'm not stuck with a closet full of beer I'm not enjoying.
So far, so good. I started off with an OG of ~1045 and last I checked it was at 1018. The beer smells a bit hoppy and tastes it too.
I'm trying a secondary this time, though I'm looking at a lot of posts on this forum saying they aren't really necessary. I'm weighing the benefits of a secondary. I'd like to experience the clarity of a secondary racked beer, but I'd also like to get a hard cider going in my would be secondary in addition to another beer in the usual primary.
Anyway, that's my introduction. Any feedback on the secondary issue is welcome for those of you who got this far.
So I started brewing January of this year. My first three beers were unimpressive, and I currently have a half batch of beer going that I think I'll putting into a secondary later this week.
My very first beer was a Coopers Wheat kit from their "master brewer" set. The beer was okay, but I was definitely a bit of a let down.
The second one was what Coopers was calling a lager. It came with the fermentation kit I got for Christmas; it was an LME, and some kind of "brewers sugar". The yeast was something that they claimed would be similar to a lager yeast; I didn't really question this. This beer also left me wanting; the beer was thin and all it was good for was a buzz.
The third beer was a "nut brown ale." I had high hopes for this one because I went to a LHBS and asked the proprietor for a brown or brown ale with some hoppiness to it, thinking part of the reason I didn't like my previous beers was because there was little flavor other than maltiness. He set me up with some nut brown extract that he said was pre-hopped, some DME, and I was on my way.
This was probably my least favorite one so far; it had no body, definitely no hop notes, it smelled a little funny (perhaps because of my using bleach as a sanitizer and not rinsing well enough), and I couldn't wait to get rid of it. I also blame high fermenting temperatures for some weird smells; it seemed to hit FG in about two days.
Enter a long hot summer in a poorly air conditioned apartment plus a bit of discouragement == No homebrewing.
I finally brewed up my fourth beer about two weeks ago. I went to another LHBS and specifically told him that I wanted to make an ale that was as similar to a Sam Adams Boston Lager as an ale could get.
After telling me to adjust my expectations (I already had; I more just wanted to use the lager as a hops reference more than anything else, as its a beer I'm familiar with), he set me up with an LME, and some things I hadn't experienced before: a bag of crushed grains, two ounces of hops, and a specific schedule for those hops. I felt like a real brewer.
I'm looking at this as a learning beer: after my three prior experiences I specifically made only 2.5 gallons (as opposed the six gallon batches prior); that way if I make another bland batch I'm not stuck with a closet full of beer I'm not enjoying.
So far, so good. I started off with an OG of ~1045 and last I checked it was at 1018. The beer smells a bit hoppy and tastes it too.
I'm trying a secondary this time, though I'm looking at a lot of posts on this forum saying they aren't really necessary. I'm weighing the benefits of a secondary. I'd like to experience the clarity of a secondary racked beer, but I'd also like to get a hard cider going in my would be secondary in addition to another beer in the usual primary.
Anyway, that's my introduction. Any feedback on the secondary issue is welcome for those of you who got this far.
