Indytruks138
Well-Known Member
Sunday was my first brewday, and so far it seems to be quite a success. My buddy and I bought a kit from Homebrew Headquarters here in Richardson, got the super deluxe kit with everything we needed, and we did our first kit beer yesterday. Cleaning and sanitation were tedious but not bad at all and I think we did it all right. We did a ten minute boil per LHBS instructions, we almost had a boilover, we did a 2.5 gallon boil in a 4 gallon pot, but caught it right before it boiled over and averted the disaster.
We used a Murton's Nut Brown Ale kit, but instead of corn sugar the LHBS was nice enough to give us 2 lb amber malt extract to give the beer more body and a fuller flavor. We took a friend's advice and mixed the DME in some cold water before going to the pot, he said adding the DME to the pot clumps alot of the time. We took the can of LME and soaked it in hot water for about 15 minutes to thin it out and lessen the chance of it burning in the pot. Per the instructions we added the LME and DME at 170 degrees F and brought to a boil. We did the sink chilling method with cold water baths then finishing with an ice water bath. We were able to bring the 2.5 gallons of wort down to 80 degrees in less than 20 minutes, seemed quick enough to me.
I combined the wort and pre-boiled top off water in my bottling bucket to make sure we could get an accurate temperature reading before going into the carboy. I also used a tip I read on here that if you go through the bottling bucket and let the wort fall into the funnel into the carboy it will help aerate it. We did this and get a nice foamy head on it showing lots of aeration.
The kit came with dry yeast so we rehydrated it in warm water for about 10 minutes, and pitched it when the 5 gallons of wort was at 70 degrees.
I put it in the closet at about 3pm yesterday, this morning on my way to work, at 7:30 am, it had about 2 inches of krausen on it, and the airlock was bubbling away at a few bubbles per second. Looks like soon we will have beer!!! Such a fun hobby.
Edit: I did forget we had one casualty, I broke the hydrometer before I could even test the original gravity. Luckily the wife was willing to run to the LHBS and buy me a new one, so we did get to test original gravity.
We used a Murton's Nut Brown Ale kit, but instead of corn sugar the LHBS was nice enough to give us 2 lb amber malt extract to give the beer more body and a fuller flavor. We took a friend's advice and mixed the DME in some cold water before going to the pot, he said adding the DME to the pot clumps alot of the time. We took the can of LME and soaked it in hot water for about 15 minutes to thin it out and lessen the chance of it burning in the pot. Per the instructions we added the LME and DME at 170 degrees F and brought to a boil. We did the sink chilling method with cold water baths then finishing with an ice water bath. We were able to bring the 2.5 gallons of wort down to 80 degrees in less than 20 minutes, seemed quick enough to me.
I combined the wort and pre-boiled top off water in my bottling bucket to make sure we could get an accurate temperature reading before going into the carboy. I also used a tip I read on here that if you go through the bottling bucket and let the wort fall into the funnel into the carboy it will help aerate it. We did this and get a nice foamy head on it showing lots of aeration.
The kit came with dry yeast so we rehydrated it in warm water for about 10 minutes, and pitched it when the 5 gallons of wort was at 70 degrees.
I put it in the closet at about 3pm yesterday, this morning on my way to work, at 7:30 am, it had about 2 inches of krausen on it, and the airlock was bubbling away at a few bubbles per second. Looks like soon we will have beer!!! Such a fun hobby.
Edit: I did forget we had one casualty, I broke the hydrometer before I could even test the original gravity. Luckily the wife was willing to run to the LHBS and buy me a new one, so we did get to test original gravity.
