Ready for first Brew......am I crazy?

[William_Stout]

So for Christmas I got all my brewing kit. Got the kettle, carboy, auto-siphon. I'm all ready to go so I go online to order from the best ingredient site in Canada so I'm told, and they are shut down for the holidays.....I tell myself I can wait. And I can't so I go out to my LHBS to see what I can see. The trouble is, here in Edmonton Alberta nobody seems to want to brew beer and they have very slim pickings. All they have in bulk for DME is Gold Dry Light and I grab roughly 5.5 lbs (actually its 2500 grams because I'm in Canada :cross and I grab 1 pound of Caramunch 40-50 lovibond and 1/2 a pound of chocolate malt. Next I ask him about yeast, all he has is two 7gram packets of Coopers yeast, it doesn't say if it is Ale or Lager? As far as hops, all he had was Saaz (A.A. 2.5%) I got 2 Oz. and Hallertau (A.A. 4.1%) 1 Oz.

My question is, can I make a beer out of this? In the new year I am going to order ingredients from said site and use a proper recipe, but I really just wanna jump in. This is a pretty crazy experiment IMO and I dont know if I will get something drinkable. so..........am I crazy?

 

[Pilgarlic]

Crazy? Absolutely not. Right now it's about learning. Brew it. Drink it. Name it. Have fun. Bitter with the Hallertau (60 min) and toss the Saaz in 1 oz at 15 and 1 oz at flameout. Oh, and I would cut back the chocolate to 2 oz or so.

 

[William_Stout]

Awesome, I was hoping to hear that. The yeast I have, its 2*7g packets of coopers, should I use both packets or just the one?

 

[petey_c]

WStout, No ballz, no blue chips. Brew it and try it out. Take copious notes for future reference. we'll all be waiting for the reviews. Cheers, Pete

 

[NOISEpollution]

What a horrible homebrew shop. I'd do a starter if you're working with dry yeast.

 

[neut2004]

Do not make a starter with dry yeast. These mumified yeast were not intended to be propagated in a starter before pitching into your wort. You can rehydrate the yeast before you pitch it (sprinkle onto a few ounces of room temp tap water and let sit for a few minutes to allow the yeast to soak up some water), or just pitch it in dry. Are these 2.7 gram packets? That's awfully small. I usually see 11g packets. Pitch both if they are as small as you say.

 

[William_Stout]

yah its pretty bad. The store is call Cap 'N' Cork, but it mainly focuses on the Wine side of things, probably from lack of interest, homebrewing doesn't seem to big in my neck of the woods. Check on the Starter, I'm brewing tomorrow so I guess I should get the starter done tonight?

 

[Pilgarlic]

Repeat: do not make a starter with your dry yeast. I assume it's two 7 gram packages. If so, you can use one, or toss the other in for insurance (the yeast may be old and of dubious viability). Rehydrate as neut2004 described above. Have fun!

 

[William_Stout]

cool thanks for the tips. Sorry for the miscommunication, they are 2 7 gram packs. 2x7g.

 

[ACbrewer]

"Am I crazy?" ... specific to what you are doing? probably not... in general for home brewing.. I find that 1. Probably but 2. that helps...

so welcome to the brewitarium... where the insane make tasty drink out of grain and water

 

[Rubes]

What's the store you were going to order from that is closed for the holidays? Also check out the Brewer's Pantry,
http://brewerspantry.com/index.php?route=common/home

He has a good selection and some of the best prices I've seen from Canadian sites. Good homebrew stores seem to be hard to come by up here..

 

[William_Stout]

Holiday-main
I've searched around and heard that they are pretty good to order from.
Hop Dawgs Home Brewing Supplies
These guys look pretty good, just no extract.

 

[opusx11]

William, there is actually quite a very good and experienced brewing scene in Edmonton (see Edmonton Homebrewers' Guild). The guild is also sponsored by perhaps the best homebrew supply store (Winning Wines plus southside) who stock pretty much everything that we need incl a large variety of Wyeast -no affiliation just a loyal customer.

 

[William_Stout]

awesome, thanks for the info. I'll check out the southside location for sure. I had heard about the EHG but I guess I need to look into it a bit more. Maybe after a few more brews

 

[William_Stout]

Well the batch is bottled and the sample tasted great. OG 1.045 FG 1.13. got the old lady to help me bottle and now she cant wait haha. I gave it 4 weeks in the carboy, no secondary. It came out quite clear and I can't wait for it to carb up. haven't done another brew yet and I'm kicking myself for it, hopefully this weekend will fix that. Also I found 3 Carboys online for 15 a piece so I can really get the pipeline going.

 

[RM-MN]

While the conventional wisdom seems to be to wait 3 weeks to carbonate and mature a bit, since you had the patience to wait the 4 weeks in the primary your beer is likely to be carbonated (if the temperature where you store your bottles is warm enough, mine get a steady 72 F) in a week and nearing maturity and you should try a sample then. DON'T DRINK THEM ALL! They will get better with time but they should be quite drinkable. If you open one (after 48 hours of refrigeration) and it isn't carbed, give the rest another week and try again.

 

[William_Stout]

Well I took your advice and tried one after a week in the bottle, I only let it sit in the fridge about 36 hours (couldn't wait). And it was good, carbonation was perfect. The flavour was basically a Brown Ale, with a decent hoppy finish. I'm thinking the hops will mellow out a bit over time. I already have my next ingredients ready for my next brew "Desert Combat Red" can't wait, now that I know I like homebrew I just wanna brew more and more.