Waiting patiently for my first brew

[callmebruce]

Decided on a British Pale Ale and wandered over to Brewmaster's. Got some nice grains and hops and malt extract and directions. Had fun steeping my big ol' teabag full of stuff. Had fun adding hops, mixing in extract, adding more extract, adding more hops.

Cooled it down, tossed yeast and have it in a fermentation bucket, sealed, locked and bubbling away. Can't wait for priming and bottling day, and tasting day!

Didn't know what to do with the bag of grains and stuff. Just steeped it for 30 minutes per directions. But thinking I should have poured water over the bag to extract the grainy goodness (sparging? beats heck out of me). Will reread "The Joy of Homebrewing" (or whatever it's called). I'm sure the book tells me what I should have done.

Anyway, can't wait.

 

[Runyanka]

Unless you were doing a partial mash, its okay just to hold it over the pot a while and let the water drip out. Make sure not to squeeze the bag though. Have fun, once you broken the seal and tasted your first homebrew, you will be hooked!

 

[callmebruce]

Used a snazzy auto-siphon and moved it from the fermentation bucket to a better bottle. It looked and smelled tasty! I'll give it a few days, then prime and bottle. I really liked seeing a 5 gallon jug of Ale. What a wonderful sight!

 

[beerjunky828]

Indeed it is. Don't ever keep the jug dry man. Just don't let it get dry.

 

[bthorn9435]

I'm patiently waiting for my first batch to finsih fermentation. I am on Day 6. If you want
time to slow down brew a batch of beer. After 2 weeks I am gonna check gravity and if all is good procede with bottling. I am real curious to see how this Amber Ale turns out. If it's drinkable I plan on moving the brew train forward.

 

[callmebruce]

First beer is bottled and carbing away. I had an auto-siphon that was too short for the better bottle (I used it and sized it for one gallon cider jugs) - so had a few tries at getting it started. Since I was able to get some beer into the bottling bucket before getting air in the lines - I figured I'd simply reverse the flow with the siphon. Got air out of the line, got it filled with beer, disconnected the hose and let it flow. Worked like a charm (next time, will get a bigger auto-siphon!).

Tried one flat. It is definately an Extra Strong Bitter beer! Stronger tasting than the Bass Ale I was hoping to emulate - but entirely my fault (I went a little heavier on the hops).

My birthday is coming up, and I think my wife ordered an Amber Ale kit from Brewmasters. Looking forward to getting another batch going. In the mean time - I have 48 bottles of ESB Ale bottled, and 15 more bottles of hard cider hanging out.

Cool.