Preparing for my first brew, questions!

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shok

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Ok I have been slowly gathering all that I will need to try my first brew.

I want to make a nice amber ale, maybe with a hint of citrus or fruit to it.

So I chose my extract:
Bierkeller Malt Extract Amber.
Now this is unhopped, so I need to buy hops.
Someone please recommend a hop for me and also when to use it.

I would assume that during the boil I would add the hops, actually near the end....how much hops?

Also when to add the fruit....also in the boil?

I plan on bottling from the fermenting bucket directly, do I need a filter or anything?


Thanks in advance!
 
With the hop shortage you'll have to just see what's available from the place where you want to purchase your hops.

As far as a hop schedule goes just go to the Recipe/Ingredience section and see if you can find a beer you'd like in the Recipe locator Sticky and follow that schedule.

With all grain the schedule is 60 minutes for bittering hops, 30 minutes for flavoring hops and 15 minutes for aroma hops then some folks also add hops to the fermenter (called dry Hopping). I don't really know how that would translate if you are only doing a partial boil.

Doing extract I'd think there would be no need for any filtration. But I've never done an extract I started by doing All Grain. So I'll leave it to someone else to advise you there too.
 
You do add the hops during the boil, but how much you add depends on how much beer you are making and how much water you are boiling (and how hoppy you want the beer).

A couple of questions:

Is it 3.3 lbs of extract?
How many gallons of beer are you planning to make?
How much of the water are you going to boil the extract in.
What type of beers do you prefer? I.e., what are you shooting for?

Typically, the extract comes in 3.3 lbs but you would probably want more extract for a (typical) five-gallon batch.

As an aside, I'd leave out the fruit in my first batch; when starting out, the simpler the better in my opinion.

Rick
 
Have you done all the required reading www.howtobrew.com and looked over the wiki? If you have not I strongly recommend your do before you attempt your first brew.
 
shok said:
Ok I have been slowly gathering all that I will need to try my first brew.

I want to make a nice amber ale, maybe with a hint of citrus or fruit to it.

So I chose my extract:
Bierkeller Malt Extract Amber.
Now this is unhopped, so I need to buy hops.
Someone please recommend a hop for me and also when to use it.

I would assume that during the boil I would add the hops, actually near the end....how much hops?

Also when to add the fruit....also in the boil?

I plan on bottling from the fermenting bucket directly, do I need a filter or anything?


Thanks in advance!


You can but I wouldn't add fruit on your first batch until you get a little more EXP but its totally your call, Usually you add the fruit in the secondary or bottling bucket if your using liquid, and for an amber ale I suggest .25 Oz EK Fuggels and 2 oz EK Goldings if there Available to you.
 
rickylr said:
You do add the hops during the boil, but how much you add depends on how much beer you are making and how much water you are boiling (and how hoppy you want the beer).

A couple of questions:

Is it 3.3 lbs of extract?
How many gallons of beer are you planning to make?
How much of the water are you going to boil the extract in.
What type of beers do you prefer? I.e., what are you shooting for?

Typically, the extract comes in 3.3 lbs but you would probably want more extract for a (typical) five-gallon batch.

As an aside, I'd leave out the fruit in my first batch; when starting out, the simpler the better in my opinion.

Rick


It's 3.5lbs and I planned on boiling it in 2 gallons of water with the sugar.
I was shooting for 4.5 - 5 gallons of beer

I really like Ale and Bocks
 
Personally I wouldn't recommend designing your own recipe for your first batch. Austin Homebrew, Northern Brewer, or you lhbs probably have ingredient kits with all the recipe design done for you. AHS and Northern Brewer send their kits with excellent instructions on when to add the different hops and everything. I would STRONGLY recommend you go this route for your first brew.
 
You really Need to have about 6 or 7 lbs of LME plus the sugars, please post everything you have and the quantity and it will be easier for everyone to help you.
 
Are you planning on fermenting in a bucket with a spigot (since you said your bottling directly from the bucket)? I wouldn't recommend doing that myself, usually you use a fermenter and then transfer to a bottling bucket so you can add the priming sugar without stirring everything back up, plus the spigot adds risk of contamination I would think.

It sounds to me like maybe you don't have all the equipment? If you're not using a homebrewing equipment kit (which has worked great for me, it's never going to be completely obsolete because you'll always need buckets and tubes and such), then you'd need at least one "ale pail" for primary fermentation, another food-grade bucket drilled for a spigot for bottling, some siphon hose, a racking cane, and a bottling wand. You'll also need a no-rinse sanitizer of some kind and a bottle capper.

Also recommending using some kind of kit or preformulated recipe for your first beer. Then you get a success under your belt, boost your confidence, everybody wins!! (especially you)
 
I would leave off the sugar and use more malt extract.

Here is a link to a recipe for a pale ale in John Palmer's How To Brew book:
Cincinnati Pale Ale

Since you have amber liquid malt extract where the recipe calls for pale liquid malt extract, I'd use light dry malt extract instead of amber dry malt extract. If you read the preceding / succeeding chapters in Palmer's online book it will fully explain how to brew that (or any) recipe.

Good luck!

Rick
 
thanks for the info guys


Yeah my plan is to ferment and bottle from 1 bucket for my first time

I have seen people do this with no issues. As I gain experience I will move on to secondaries.

Your right, I will hold off on the flavoring for this batch
 
shok said:
...I want to make a nice amber ale, maybe with a hint of citrus or fruit to it.

I would assume that during the boil I would add the hops, actually near the end....how much hops?

Shok,

Here's a recipe and step-by-step instructions for a good English Amber Extract (with steeping grains).

This is actually the very first recipe I did some 40+ batches ago. The step-by-step really helped me to understand the process and it was pretty darn simple.
 
shok said:
thanks for the info guys


Yeah my plan is to ferment and bottle from 1 bucket for my first time

I have seen people do this with no issues. As I gain experience I will move on to secondaries.

Your right, I will hold off on the flavoring for this batch

yo holmes I'm not talking about secondaries, I'm talking about how are you planning on getting the priming sugar into the beer without stirring up all the sediment? The VAST majority of people use a primary fermenter and a separate bottling bucket, I mean do what you want but I think it's that way for a reason. I guess you could use carbtabs but even then wouldn't it be easier to rack at least once so you don't have as much gunk to avoid?
 
I boil the sugar and the extract together

after fermenting I have pellets for each bottle for the carbonation
 
shok said:
I boil the sugar and the extract together

after fermenting I have pellets for each bottle for the carbonation

OK, I can see that, but there must be something I'm not getting, because now that I think about it it, wouldn't the spigot be right where all the trub was? If you bottle by siphoning out the top, do you just keep restarting the siphon or am I missing something?

it would seem to me, and I could be wrong, that you WOULD need some kind of filter to do this one-bucket thing you seem so set on, but even then wouldn't the filter just get clogged with hops? Are you gonna use a hop bag or something?

I'm confused, it seems like the way you want to do it is pretty complex...
 
jmiracle said:
...If you bottle by siphoning out the top, do you just keep restarting the siphon or am I missing something?
...

Most spigots are positioned about 1 - 1 1/2 inches above the bottom to avoid trub. But a heavy fermenting batch might create more than enough to get sucked into the spigot.

A bottling wand on the end of the siphon hose would eliminate the need to stop/retart a siphon. The catch is to keep the siphoning cane steady. I would use a clothes line clip or something to secure it to the wall of the bucket, and to help position the cane just above the trub.
 
BierMuncher said:
Most spigots are positioned about 1 - 1 1/2 inches above the bottom to avoid trub. But a heavy fermenting batch might create more than enough to get sucked into the spigot.

A botling wand on the end of the siphon hose would eliminate the need to stop/retart a siphon. The catch is to keep the siphoning cane steady. I sould use a clothes line clip or something to secure it to the wall of the bucket, and to help position the cane just above the trub.

well you learn something new everyday, I use a bottling wand but I thought it was the spigot being on the bottom that made it work...I do science good :drunk:
 
I was going to do it sort of like this guy is doing, although he isnt adding hops, he has hopped malt



[ame]http://youtube.com/watch?v=sAJKWCdaPq4[/ame]

hes got 4 parts that seem interesting
 
I think most of us who have been around for a while have seen those videos. I'll try to say this in a nice way- those are terrible and not good practices for brewing.

I'd suggesting looking through some of Bobby_M's videos here on HBT, reading our wiki and howtobrew.com and totally disregarding those videos you linked to. And don't use sugar in your beer to make up the lack of malt. Fermented sugar in place of malt extract just plain tastes horrible.
 
Everything can be done multiple ways with varied results.

All we are saying is with a few changes to your plans you can save yourself a lot of headache and ensure yourself a better brew.

Either way best of luck on your brew and hope it turns out bubbly and tasty.
 
Quoth YooperBrew:
I think most of us who have been around for a while have seen those videos. I'll try to say this in a nice way- those are terrible and not good practices for brewing.
Wow. Youtube wasn't around when I used to brew (wished I'd have invented it, but I was busy trying to sell computers to the Amish -- thought I'd found a niche market; ah, well) but I guess it'll be beer . . . beerish, anyway.

Rick
 
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