New Grainfather user, what should I brew first?

[Luke_Buckaz]

I took ownership of a Grainfather yesterday. I'm looking for ideas of what I could brew first. Looking for something fairly simple so I can get used to the processes etc.

Also, where is the best place to purchase already made up ingredient packs?

Thanks.

 

[Saisonator]

Avoid the usual highly hopped Punk IPA clones, too many dry hops which can cause issues with oxidation.
In fact American hops are expensive so you don't want to muck up an expensive brew.
What sort of water do you have, hard or soft?

 

[MmmBeer]

Agree with Saisonator, stick to something fairly simple first time out. Do you have either the Greg Hughes or Graham Wheeler books? Both contain plenty of simple ale recipes, otherwise pick a beer or style you like and use Brewers Friend or just google to find a clone recipe.

 

[chewie]

If you don't have any form of temp control for lager fermentations i would go with an ale or stout, just depends really on what you like to drink, there is no point making something that you don't like just for the sake of making it, 3 or 4kg of base malt and 1/2 kg of either crystal or roasted malt (add some flaked barley to the roasted malt if you decide on a stout) . The ale can have 1-3 hops depending how complex you want the hop additions, the stout will only need a single bittering hop added. A Nottingham or US 05 yeast type strain will do either.

Do have your ingredients weighed out beforehand, water quantities sorted and any treatment prepped/done. Expect a 6 hour brew day for your first run thru on it. Do read thru the GF tips and tricks threads as there is a lot of useful info about for time saving and making brew days as easy as possible. If you have a seperate way to heat sparge water start it of heating up when you are 20-30 mins in to your mash, it should be up to temp then by the time the mash is complete.

 

[GerritT]

Greg Hughes has some single hop ales in his book. Pretty straightforward stuff, and tasty too. Doing a series of them myself to tweak my routines.

 

[-Bezza-]

Also agree on the Greg Hughes book. Recipes are clear and well laid out and have a variety of different styles that will be a good source of inspiration. Once I know what I'm doing, I really want to make a Japanese Rice Lager which I wouldn't have even thought about were if not for Greg Hughes. Frankly, I think he's going to have a lot to answer for in the future.

 

[Clint]

Yep get the books! The stout is really good...I've just done a second batch but changed the hops. The single hop recipes in the GH are very simple but do make good beer...nice and easy to learn your kit. The trouble is I want to make all the recipes in both books...explaining the logic of having hundreds of bottles of beer in my shed to Mrs Clint isn't going well...but goes roughly like this...
If I drink 10 bottles a week...
That's 500 a year.... (don't tell her this bit..)
They take at least a couple of months to come good. ..
That means I need around 3 or 4 batches... (I've lost myself by now)
So instead of Asda keeping them all I'm keeping them here.....
AND they only cost about 40p EACH....
She should by know look slightly confused but equally impressed by your money saving skills...time to promise her nice things from the shops....via the brew shop!

 

[Fil]

a basic smash brew is an uncomplicated 1st brew..
Worcesterhopshop, the maltmiller are two suppliers of AG 'kits' both of which i have used and can recommend..

 

[Clint]

I like the way you "took ownership" of the gf. ...that speaks volumes....make it do its thing!

 

[Lesinge]

What they said..Greg Hughes is good. Here is a tip..play with the equipment as if you are doing a brew but without doing a brew..I am an experienced brewer 158 brews and messed up my first couple of brews because I failed to do the basics of reading the instructions and more importantly, doing it myself to grasp what they were telling me. After that, it is really easy and you will have much clearer beer..unless you already had a circulation system of course! Havent bothered about water treatment yet, next phase, but you may already be doing it - have you been brewing the old fashion way (some say it is better but I love them both). My water is hard so I make lots of IPA and little lager. Also the software helps with the OG and IBU's etc. If I was going to do a beer tomorrow and need a recipe I would do something like:

4.5kg of MO
300G of Carapils
and hops to make the IBU 40 or there abouts at 60 mins, 15 mins (don't forget the profloc/irish moss at 15mins) and hopstand (20 mins).

Nice and simple and let the hops do the work.

 

[Luke_Buckaz]

Thanks for all the replies folks!

Yeah I was looking to do a SMaSH for my first couple of brews just to familiarise myself with the process. I started out doing kits almost a year ago to the day. Then I moved on to BIAB just before Xmas, always hoping in the back of my mind that I'd have an all in one system. Then this one came up consisting of:

Grainfather connect
Grainfather jacket
Grainfather spare water heater
Grainfather stainless steel fermenter
5 x cornie kegs
2 x Co2 tanks
3 party taps
Refractometer
Various hops
3 fermentation vessels
And various other bits and bobs

It was at a good price so I couldn't turn it down.

Going to give everything a good clean at the weekend and have a play around.

Im in a hard water area.

I like all styles of real ale. Although I do tend to go for the darker ones.

I've heard the Greg Hughes book referenced thousands of times so I'm going to order that as soon as I've done replying to this thread.

I don't have any form of temperature control at the minute, although I do have two under the counter fridges in my pub shed. One is destined to become a kegerator and the other a fermentation fridge.

The other half has given up moaning about bottles and brewing paraphernalia all over the house, plus she also likes a tipple so as long as there is plenty of wine in stock she's happy.

Again, thanks for the advice!

 

[Manxnorton]

Greg Hughes has some single hop ales in his book. Pretty straightforward stuff, and tasty too. Doing a series of them myself to tweak my routines.

aye was just going to say, a single hop IPA.
I would advice to get the small pipe work to do small batches till up to bigger batches...
but it only take about 1-2 brews to get familiar we the system tbh.
Bri

 

[Lesinge]

aye was just going to say, a single hop IPA.
I would advice to get the small pipe work to do small batches till up to bigger batches...
but it only take about 1-2 brews to get familiar we the system tbh.
Bri

Good advice, although....I have found that just using MO etc with no Wheat or Carapils etc to help with head retention can sometimes mean that you get a no head beer..no problem except you might be tempted to think you are doing something wrong with the GF.

 

[Manxnorton]

yeah your right with the ipa..
but my single Amarillo ipa had carapils aswell. loved that brew.
and tried American ale yeast. Seemed to be good.
Bri

 

[dweb]

A good Irish stout is simple to start with

 

[Saisonator]

A good Irish stout is simple to start with

That's true, hard to mess up a simple stout.

 

[Norfolk79]

One of my first brews (after having used some pre-prepared all grain kits) was a Mosaic SMASH. Very enjoyable and fairly straight forward to brew.

 

[KVSV]

My last Grainfather brew was Honey Porter (from Greg Huges book). Delicious, easy drinking, almost too easy for 5.8 ABV, perfect for summer. It was supposed to be 5.2 but I decided to up grain bill a bit. Another two nice and easy brews I did a few times are Wheatbeer and Dunkelweizen from the same book. Just beware horrible smells during fermentation with WLP380.

One piece of advice when using Grainfather is to ensure you give grain a good stir after adding to a grain basket. About 5 minutes will do. This is to avoid disappointment with efficiency.

 

[Luke_Buckaz]

I've ordered a couple of the single hop series from Geterbrewed. Simple and cheap incase I mess up. Haha.

 

[marlon]

The best and most reliable A/G kits I've tried came from homebrewonline.co.uk they sell Brewolution kits. Bit dearer than some (£21.95/23litre) but worth that little extra IMO. Never had anything but excellent results using them.
Also Beerhawk.co.uk do a few good ones. Their Irish Red Ale is good.