Dipping the toes

[Marv]

Hi All,

Completely new to this hobbie. Found this website today whilst I was planning on spending £300 - 400 on a beginners setup - BIAB. Stumbbled on a post from a member (clibit) stating; to just try a small brew in the kitchen and ferment. I decidied to go this route, although, I do know that I can't expect anything special.

So I went ahead and bought the following (10L);

- 1Kg Maris Otter
- Variety of hops (Citra, Galaxy and Amarillo)
- Youngs all purpose yeast (mistake on my part, forgot to buy yeast from an online brew shop and resorted to general yeast from amazon).

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated. I just want to dip my toes into this hobbie, make a brew that is as tasty as possible given the minimal set up.

Thanks folks!

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[Rwilts]

Welcome..

 

[conorm]

Start with liquid kits, learn the basics of hygiene, temperature control and timing, thorough trial and error. Then think about going for grains and hops.

One step I, and others have made, was using liquid malt extract, steeping speciality grains and making hop teas / dry hopping. I still fondly remember the chili chipotle chocolate porter I made when i was messing around with cans of malt extract and caramelised grains.

 

[The Baron]

Welcome to the forum

 

[Agentgonzo]

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Relax, enjoy it and have fun. Kits are a great way to start and they take the complexity out of it (either extract kits, or grain kits).

Do a basic brew, don't fret about doing it wrong, and ignore things that seem 'too complicated' for a brew or two. You can get a whole lot of things wrong and still make pretty good beer and enjoy the process!

 

[Marv]

Thanks folks, I will take on this advice. I plan to attempt the AG brew to see how it turns out. Not 100% of the yeast but I will report back with an update in the weeks to come. Look forward to chatting with you all and thanks for the speedy replies!!

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Welcome to the forum

 

[Clint]

As said your biggest friend is hygiene. Clean and sanitise.

 

[fluketamer]

welcome



i really feel yeast and temperature control are as important or more than sanitation , boil and recipe.

that being said i wouldnt use general purpose yeast , and i would definitely try to cotrol the temperature.

 

[Marv]

Can you recommend a good strain of yeast that its fussy about temp? Is there such a thing?

 

[Agentgonzo]

i really feel yeast and temperature control are as important or more than sanitation , boil and recipe

I completely disagree. If you put 25% black malt in your recipe, it'll taste ***** no matter how good your temperature control is

A recipe (if you download one from the internet or use a kit) is trivial to get right and involves knowing how to use a set of kitchen scales.

Similarly, a boil requires turning the heat on and know how to use a timer.

Sanitation requires knowing how to read a set of instructions and how too pour liquid into a tub and leave it for 5 minutes.

If you get the recipe wrong, or the sanitisation wrong, the beer will be undrinkable.

Temperature control requires a bunch of extra kit and reading. And you can still make damn tasty beer by "chucking it in the back a cupboard and leaving it 2 weeks". It won't be world class beer, but that's not what beginners are aiming for.

Many people (including myself) have won competitions with no temperature control whatsoever. I don't think anyone would be able to win a competition without a recipe.

In my opinion, all of the "temperature makes the biggest difference" arguments are based on "I've been brewing for over 5 years and have taken for granted that it's trivial to get a half decent recipe, know how to boil and know how to sanitise of all my stuff". Beginners don't have 5 years brewing experience where all of those basic steps are as natural as walking

 

[Agentgonzo]

Can you recommend a good strain of yeast that its fussy about temp? Is there such a thing?

If you live in the UK and ferment indoors, any yeast will do a great job. Down to 5 degrees or up to 25 degrees, pretty much any yeast will make tasty beer.

The reason there are a lot of people on the internet insisting that temperature control is super important is because a lot of the people on the internet live in middle/South America (sorry, "North Mexican Riviera") where it sits in the mid - high 30s or above for a lot of the year.

Lager yeast produces great beer in the 2-15° Range.
Ale yeast produces great beer in the 15-28° range.
Kviek goes up into the 40s.
Any reliable yeast will work well for you, provided you don't ferment it in a shed or the sun.

 

[Sozzled Sab]

I too jumped straight into all grain. I got myself a Graham wheeler book,read it cover to cover and off I went. Nowadays there is loads of stuff online such as YouTube.
Remember the members here will be only to willing to help,there's no such thing as a stupid question.

 

[rbunsen]

Is Young's all purpose yeast a wine yeast ?
If so, you might want to change it for beer yeast.

 

[Clint]

For some very reasonably priced yeasts and better than average service check out Cross My Loof brew supplies.

 

[jof]

Nothing wrong with starting your journey doing 10l batches in a big pan on the kitchen cooker.
Get the feel for it.

If you want to do 20l batches because you have a big fermenting bin & lots of bottles, you can do a partial mash.
The idea there is you use 1/2 the base malt, but full hops in 10l. Then use dried malt extract (DME) to make up the other 1/2 of the malt and water mixed in the fermenting bin.

 

[Marv]

Is Young's all purpose yeast a wine yeast ?
If so, you might want to change it for beer yeast.

The seller specifically stated beer

I have no idea how it will turn out. Since reading the comments, I have also bought a kit to try first. Looking forward to the results.

 

[Marv]

Nothing wrong with starting your journey doing 10l batches in a big pan on the kitchen cooker.
Get the feel for it.

If you want to do 20l batches because you have a big fermenting bin & lots of bottles, you can do a partial mash.
The idea there is you use 1/2 the base malt, but full hops in 10l. Then use dried malt extract (DME) to make up the other 1/2 of the malt and water mixed in the fermenting bin.

Most of the reasonably priced gas cookers/boilers are sold out on the websites that I have viewed. Therefore, a partial mash might actually suit my setup going forward - I will look into this a little bit more. Thanks!!

 

[Dark Arts]

Most of the reasonably priced gas cookers/boilers are sold out on the websites that I have viewed. Therefore, a partial mash might actually suit my setup going forward - I will look into this a little bit more. Thanks!!

Welcome....my first ever AG brew was done in a 8ltr pan using a nylon veg bag from lidl as my biab made beer good enough to want to make more, try a SMASH beer single malt and single hop, try doing a 30min boil instead of 60 just adjust the quality of hops to compensate

 

[gavp1979]

Hi Marv and welcome to the forum. Now that you have bought an extract kit you might as well use it but don't be afraid to have a go at your original plan of brewing a small AG batch. I agree with Agent Gonzo that temperature control is good but you don't need it at the start, there is a danger that when everyone starts to tell you that you need to think about everything that it can get overwhelming and you end up doing nothing. I would suggest downloading some software (I use Brewfather but there are others available), this will allow you to add your ingredients and pick a beer style that you like which will show you how close it will be, if you wanted you could play with the various hop amounts/timings to see what difference it makes, then get yourself in the kitchen and brew some beer

As long as everything is clean and you sanitise your fermenter then it is harder than you think to make undrinkable beer