Hi from Sheffield

[BrewDan87]

Hi guys! New to the world of brewing! Picked up my first kit today and can't wait to try my own made brews!
Apart from the obvious tips (hygiene etc) are there any other tips I could get?
Great meeting you all! :-)

 

[Dutto]

Welcome to the Forum. :thumb:

The best advice you will ever get is "Sanitise everything that touches your brew!"

After that, it's best if you follow the "Golden Rule" for beer brewing of "2+2+2" as follows:

o Two weeks fermenting.

o Two weeks carbonating.

o Two weeks conditioning.

The kits promise you a lot less time but a bit of patience will make all your brews that much better.

Oh, and one other tip is to try and reach "critical mass" as soon as you can.

i.e. The point when you have enough beer sat on your shelves to take your time, pick and choose what your next brew will be and maybe even experiment a bit to find your own Holy Grail ...

... which in brewing terms is The Perfect Pint.

Enjoy! :thumb: :thumb:

 

[Chrissparky]

Hi
I would leave the conditioning to 4 weeks but try some each week till then to see how time changes you're beer,
Also try and keep you're fermentor temperature stable. I would try for a bit cooler than the kit recommends

 

[Smileyr8]

Hi BrewDan87,

Welcome to the forum from Sheffield.

 

[Personal91]

Hi guys! New to the world of brewing! Picked up my first kit today and can't wait to try my own made brews!
Apart from the obvious tips (hygiene etc) are there any other tips I could get?
Great meeting you all! :-)

Good Morning and welcome to our wonderful forum of brewing

What is your usual tipple, and what kind of brew would you like to make first ?

there are many weird and fantastical beer, lager, cider, wine etc kits out there and if you have an idea of what you would to do someone will have tried a kit that will help you make something like it :)

welcome again and I wish you the very best of luck :grin:

 

[terrym]

Welcome BrewDan.
If you have just started on kits you might find this link useful
Basic beginners guide to brewing your own beer from a kit - The HomeBrew Forum
Plenty of reviews on kits here
Beer Kit Review A - Z

 

[marlon]

Welcome to the Forum. :thumb:

The best advice you will ever get is "Sanitise everything that touches your brew!"

After that, it's best if you follow the "Golden Rule" for beer brewing of "2+2+2" as follows:

o Two weeks fermenting.

o Two weeks carbonating.

o Two weeks conditioning.

The kits promise you a lot less time but a bit of patience will make all your brews that much better.

Oh, and one other tip is to try and reach "critical mass" as soon as you can.

i.e. The point when you have enough beer sat on your shelves to take your time, pick and choose what your next brew will be and maybe even experiment a bit to find your own Holy Grail ...

... which in brewing terms is The Perfect Pint.

Enjoy! :thumb: :thumb:

Welcome to our frendly forum Brewdan87.
+1...What Dutto says above. 2+2+2. The kits usually suggest times much less, but in my experience, patience pays. You'll want to be drinking your first kit ASAP - we all do - enjoy..! But 3 kits in, try and keep your mits off it for 3 months...tough I know, but it'll be at it's best about then.... (IMHO).:)

 

[BrewDan87]

Thanks guys! Wow didn't think i would get such a good response! :-)

I was hoping to start my first brew this weekend and have it ready for christmas day to share with everyone to see how good/bad it is! haha. Will that be too short notice though?

I have got the coopers Canadian Blonde for the first batch. Then i think my partner got me maybe "Muntons Indian Pale ale?" (Something like that anyway! :-)

I usually drink Thornbridge brewed beer or Timothy Taylor. However I can easily drink most IPA's and darker beers.

I heard somewhere that getting an automatic syphon is good? I just have a manual one. Is it cheap to upgrade?

 

[Keats]

Hi BrewDan, I'm in Sheffield too. Think there are a few of us here on the forum.

Following the 2+2+2 rule you should just about have something drinkable by Christmas but it will probably taste better if you gave it a couple more weeks. The beer kit review section might give you an idea how long it has taken for it to be at its best when other people have brewed it.

I just use a basic syphon but think you could get an auto-syphon for less than £15.

 

[terrym]

I have got the coopers Canadian Blonde for the first batch.

Dan
You might find the Canadian Blonde a bit bland if you are used to darker beers.
However you can improve things quite a lot by dry hopping your beer, which simply comprises adding dry hops to your brew when the fermentation has subsided.
There are lots of hops to choose from, but a Cascade hop suits this beer well, and comes over with citrus, like American IPAs. I would use 50g of cascade hop pellets.
Basic guide to dry hopping here.
A Newbies Guide to Dry Hopping Your Beer - The HomeBrew Forum
I would recommend a weighted nylon or muslin bag if you do decide to dry hop, at least this time around, for reasons given in the Guide.

 

[Personal91]

Thanks guys! Wow didn't think i would get such a good response! :-)

I was hoping to start my first brew this weekend and have it ready for christmas day to share with everyone to see how good/bad it is! haha. Will that be too short notice though?

I have got the coopers Canadian Blonde for the first batch. Then i think my partner got me maybe "Muntons Indian Pale ale?" (Something like that anyway! :-)

I usually drink Thornbridge brewed beer or Timothy Taylor. However I can easily drink most IPA's and darker beers.

I heard somewhere that getting an automatic syphon is good? I just have a manual one. Is it cheap to upgrade?

depending on the kit it will definatly be something to put a smile on your guests faces, its something that (if you dont drink it all hehe) will get better with time aswell !

 

[Lord0]

Only been in this game for a short time but apart from sanatisation (#1) my advice would be to give the various processes time: don't rush to finish fermentation, let beer condition for a good period etc.

Slower seems better

 

[monkier]

I heard somewhere that getting an automatic syphon is good? I just have a manual one. Is it cheap to upgrade?

Whoever told you to do that is a wise and learned man :P

 

[BrewDan87]

Yea I think it will be quite blonde. I figured if I made one I haven't drank before I will have no preconception of what it will taste like.
I may have to taste test each week then come Christmas.
Also storage wise. I've noticed it says room temperature but I was planning on keeping it in the garage during the fermenting and carbonating sections. I'm guessing I will need to have somewhere else to put it as the garage is at outdoor temperature as opposed to room temp

 

[fourbob]

Hi Dan,

yes, you'll need somewhere warmer than your garage for fermentation and conditioning - too cold and the yeast goes to sleep, to hot and they might get killed off. Most homebrew yeasts are happy enough between 18 - 24 degrees, and its best to keep your brew somewhere where the temperature is in that range and pretty stable. If you have to keep your fermenter in the garage then there are options for heating it (brew belt, water bath with an aquarium heater, heat pads) but I find i easiest to keep my beers in a nicely centrally heated house during the fermentation and warm conditioning phases. Once the beer has been bottled and kept in the warm for a couple of weeks your garage will be ideal for cold conditioning, the final stage of letting the beer settle before its ready for drinking.

And if Thornbridge beers float your boat, try the Festival Razorback, which is fairly close to a Kipling, or Youngs American Amber ale, which isn't a million miles away from a Sequoia. I mainly do all grain now, but still do these kits regularly to keep stocks up! (The homebrew shop on Abbey Lane sells both - they are premium kits so a bit more expensive than some, but well worth it IMO).

Good luck!

 

[Keats]

+1 to what fourbob said. I ferment and warm condition in the spare room then once bottled move down to the cellar for cold conditioning.

I've not tried Sequoia but the Youngs American Amber was the very first beer I made and it turned out really good. I mostly do all grain now too, but definitely worth calling into the shop on Abbey Lane (Brewmart). They have a wide range of kits at pretty good prices, as well as several types of hops if you want to add some to your Canadian Blonde.

 

[Personal91]

Yea I think it will be quite blonde. I figured if I made one I haven't drank before I will have no preconception of what it will taste like.
I may have to taste test each week then come Christmas.
Also storage wise. I've noticed it says room temperature but I was planning on keeping it in the garage during the fermenting and carbonating sections. I'm guessing I will need to have somewhere else to put it as the garage is at outdoor temperature as opposed to room temp

and keep your brew in the dark ! it stops off flavours occuring aka skunking as we know it!

 

[terrym]

Yea I think it will be quite blonde.
Also storage wise. I've noticed it says room temperature but I was planning on keeping it in the garage during the fermenting and carbonating sections. I'm guessing I will need to have somewhere else to put it as the garage is at outdoor temperature as opposed to room temp

I said it was bland not blonde! :smile: Which means it its the opposite of 'full flavoured' as I'm sure you know.
If you want to keep your beer in the garage you could set yourself up with a water bath which you can operate at garage temperatures but keep the FV and contents at a constant brew temperature which yeasts prefer. That's what I do and others on here. Its simple, cheap and effective and if you want to set up a brew fridge later on you won't have wasted much money. Try this for details
How to Set up a Water Bath for your FV - The HomeBrew Forum

 

[BrewDan87]

Haha, my bad! thinking about blonde's too much i guess! :-)
Thanks for the tips guys! i think i will end up putting it in the spare room upstairs and then moving it downstairs to the garage to chill! Man that will be heaps of heavy lifting!!

 

[BrewDan87]

ok, so i should of really asked this early. with the home brew kits, whats the difference between fermentation, carbonating and conditioning? The kit i'm using (Coopers Canadian Blonde) tells me to bottle after 2 weeks and add carbonation tablets that i don't have