Diving right in...

[reservoirdog]

Hello home brew forum.


I'm considering getting some gear together for what will be my first home brewing experience later in the year. I've read quite a bit about the different methods (extract, partial, AG etc..) and to be honest...I can't / don't feel how AG is as hard as it's made out.

Don't take that the wrong way... :rofl: What I mean is, that I think I could take it on as a first brew... a simple pale ale/IPA


Erm...am I being a little overconfident there? It's just that I don't want to buy the gear for extract brewing and then the stuff for AG as well.

 

[ash]

The equipment required for extract is additional to that required for brewing from kits, the equipment required for AG is additional to that required for extract, so it would not be a case of needing to buy sperarate equipment moving from kits to extract to AG, just additional.

ie

Kit = FV, sanitising stuff, syphoning equipment, big spoon, bottling equipment and bottles (or keg)
Extract = above + a boiler and preferably something to cool the wort quickly
AG = above + a mash tun

In my opinion, advantage with starting with a kit would be practice with getting the sanitising and fermenting right without adding too many other variables to go wrong.

 

[reservoirdog]

Ah yes I suppose that true. I kind of meant that say...buying a coopers kit that comes with all the stuff included then wanting to get going on AG feels like I'd be missing out on just making a mash tun and getting going AG.


It could be a good idea though as you say to get the habit of sanitization in swing...hmmm

 

[bob downe]

TBH I would just go for it. AG all the way. :party:

I used to do kits \ wine etc years ago as a young lad and then had a hiatus of 20 years. Mainly because kits tended to leave that 'Home brew' taste.

After talking to someone recently about brewing, they explained that AG will give you a 'real' beer rather than an 'obviously homebrew' beer.

Encouraged by this, I dived straight in, read a lot on here, made a boiler, mash tun, hop filter, HLT. I already had a hydrometer, thermometer, FV - The basic stuff.

Did my first AG brew last week and it went as smooth as silk.

Gonna keg it this weekend hopefully.

It's easy to become overwhelmed with info. and talk yourself out of it. Once you have gone through the process though, it all seems a bit like a mountain out of a molehill.

On the sanitation point, it's all just common sense. Make sure everything that touches the wort after cooling is sanitised. Simples!

I would go for it. And don't look back. :

 

[reservoirdog]

Congratulations. :


I think I'm just going to build up an AG set up and go for it.


Does boiling up your wort indoors leave a bad smell? As in the tannins and/or the hop oils clinging to everything.... I ask because this could determine some parts of my kit being for indoor or outdoor use.

 

[ash]

I brew in the garage now, but have brewed indoors and not noticed any long term smells; at the end of the day people's houses don't constantly smell of onion, garlic and other pungent things that they cook with, so I guess there is no difference with brewing. It smells quite a lot in the short term though and lets off a lot of steam!

 

[rabbie]

I went straight into AG and haven't regretted it. My first brew was pretty good, which I wasn't expecting!
The only issue for going straight to all-grain is the outlay of cash for the equipment, but you don't need to spend much, you'll get plenty tips on here.
There's so much info out there, and you can get all the help you need here too so you'll be fine going straight in.

As for the smells, well when you have the boil on it smells like a brewery of course (should do anyway) but as long as you mop any spills there is no odours left at all. I'm a kitchen brewer and my other half isn't too keen on the smell during brewing but I don't get complaints often, apart from when I leave hopslying about :thumb:

 

[Tony]

Go for it RD .... AG isn't hard ... you just need to keep your eye on a few things. Go for something straightforward, write everything down in advance (BeerSmith is good for this - and for a shed load of other things) and give it a go. Invest in some good equipment from the start!

Oh .. and have loads of fun ...
:

 

[reservoirdog]

Thanks for the replies guys.


I do plan to keep it simple for the first few brews...thinking of a simple pale ale or IPA like Amarillo.




Good to hear it that it won't leave any long lingering smells too tbh... :)


EDIT; the Amarillo IPA I've seen was a simple MO/crystal malt with hops....just googled this though...is this the real deal?


http://www.beersmith.com/Recipes2/recipe_30.htm

 

Kit = FV, sanitising stuff, syphoning equipment, big spoon, bottling equipment and bottles (or keg)
Extract = above + a boiler and preferably something to cool the wort quickly
AG = above + a mash tun

You will also need Sparging, grain filtering and hop filtering equipment.
Non of which need be expensive or complicated!

 

[ash]

Yeh sorry, missed the filtering stuff. Was just assuming fly sparge using foil with holes in though, so no extra equipment required for sparging really.

 

[Mephistopholes]

Has anyone looked at the malt bill for the IPA recipe.

It's insane. never have i seen such a list of different exotic grains all in one list. just over 50%MO in whats essentially a strong pale ale. All those melanoidin laden german malts are gonna really beef the body up though. I'm actually quite tempted to brew this myself, however i would suggest to keep costs down on your first AG brew keeping the hop bill the same but maybe just using 90-95%pale MO and 5-10% crystal.

If you do brew this, and i salute you if you do

www.themaltmiller.co.uk

this guy will sell you small bags of what you need at the lowest price going plus you'll also get next day delivery. I feel like i'm almost becoming this guys pr man but the service and price really is great. i emailed him the other day about some malt analysis sheets for the german weyerman stuff and about 30 mins later got a phone call telling me everything i wanted. its all milled fresh too so you can order 2 days before brewday for that fresh milled flavour. lol advert over.

 

[mr_spin]

good site recommendation there Mephistopholes - I'll bookmark that ready for ordering for my next brewday.

 

[Aleman]

EDIT; the Amarillo IPA I've seen was a simple MO/crystal malt with hops....just googled this though...is this the real deal?

What sort of real deal? It is so far of the mark for a Traditional 'English' India Pale Ale that it would be nothing at all like it. . . . 100% pale malt (And actually you would really be looking at Low colour pale or even lager malt) to 1.070 , and Goldings hops to about 60IBU. . . . Traditional 'English' IPA's are that simple there is absolutely not need to complicate them with exotic malts.

OTOH if you are looking at brewing some of the Insane American Pale Ales then just mix up as many different paleish malts as you can think of . . . and add 5g of as many different Citrussy hops every 5 minutes through the boil and you should be sorted


Can you tell I'm not really a fan of 'American' Pale Ales

 

[reservoirdog]

Lol, yes I knew that traditional IPA's were that simple and that's what I'm thinking of doing...the Amarillo IPA I've seen IIRC was a simple MO/ bit of low L crystal and ...obviously some Amarillo hops..


Please don't mistake me for one of these people who want to jump right in throwing hops and..... magic at the boil pot every few minutes it's really not the case.


I'm just a 24 year old who's up for ditching the generic crappy beers and getting into some good ales. :thumb:

 

[Mephistopholes]

I on the other hand intend to ditch my tried and tested recipe of 95%MO pale 5% low colour crystal and use this new malt bill along with Alemans excellent advice of throwing all the C hops at it, possibly at irregular intervals instead.

1115 OG, 350 IBU's (ive got some columbus hanging round at 16%AA so ill use a kg or so of that)

God bless america. :party: