Second brew day went great....

[tamoore]

Four hours from start to pitching yeast, and while I didn't hit the OG gravity numbers perfectly, I'm happy with the flavor of the wort that I sampled.

What I did differently for this batch:

Bought Wyeast rather than use the dry stuff.
Made a yeast starter.
Boiled a full 6 gallon batch rather than add make up water. (boiled down to about 5.5 gallons)
Didn't use a hop bag - pitched the hop pellets right into the wort.
Cooled the wort with a chiller, from 212 to 70 in about 10 minutes.

Time will tell, but I'm seriously a lot more happy with this one at this point than I was with the first batch. I saw visible fermentation action about 1.5 hours after pitching the starter.

 

[zodiak3000]

sounds like your taking the bull by the horns with your brewing. confidence and feeling good about what your doing is nice. i just decided to move to all grain and kegging. i never thought i'd be doing that after only 3 batches. i love this sport!