WHOA!!! I actually made beer.

[leapinglords]

Surprisingly, my very first batch of beer turned out just fine. It's a straight forward, traditional lager from a malt extract kit. A bit of chamomile in the profile, but easy drinking all around.

One thing I noticed is that there is an exceptional amount of head and some pretty serious lacing on the sides of the glass as a result. Is this normal at all? I've never encountered such intense head in commercial brews.

Any how, the results are pretty encouraging. I went ahead and placed an order for the ingredients of my next batch (doing a Scottish 60), as well as a second fermentation bucket with a spigot.

 

[Picobrew]

Hell yeah! Congratulations. Drink it up. Not sure about the lacing. For me, it varies with each recipe.

 

[scrambledegg81]

Good on ya-my first was surprisingly better than I expected too. I'm only venturing a guess that a) quality of ingredients, and b) substantially less lag time between bottling to tasting is why it turned out like that. What kind of carbonation did you use (sugar/carbonation drops/C02, etc.)? I've noticed that, since I've only used the drops, the head on my PA is the thing of dreams.

 

[leapinglords]

Good on ya-my first was surprisingly better than I expected too. I'm only venturing a guess that a) quality of ingredients, and b) substantially less lag time between bottling to tasting is why it turned out like that. What kind of carbonation did you use (sugar/carbonation drops/C02, etc.)? I've noticed that, since I've only used the drops, the head on my PA is the thing of dreams.

I think we let it sit four weeks before bottling, and then another 2-3 before consumption. We just used cane sugar.

After this next batch, my buddy and I are going to get away from prehopped kits and advance to extract with steeping grains. Ultimately, we want to go full grain and create our own recipes, but we'll ride the extract and steeped grain train for awhile until we get more comfortable with all this.

 

[leapinglords]

I'm curious, is it better to let the beer continue to age at room temperature, or is it fine to throw the bottles in the fridge at 3 weeks? I don't plan on drinking them terribly fast, but I know conditioning helps with the taste.

 

[scrambledegg81]

My first improved after about 2 weeks in the fridge. They started off with a tart (almost alcoholic) flavor that mellowed out after a few weeks.

 

[leapinglords]

My first improved after about 2 weeks in the fridge. They started off with a tart (almost alcoholic) flavor that mellowed out after a few weeks.

Alright, cool. I am actually finding just a touch of that in the finish, but nothing overly noticeable. I doubt a less experienced beer drinker would even catch it, it's that subtle.