Brewing from scratch

[Dave]

I've just started with the home brew thing and things are working out well. At the moment I am just using kit brews but what I am really interested in is doing it all from scratch. Is this recommended? Can anyone suggest a good recipe or a few tips to get me on the right path. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also this is a great site, very helpful.

[Dogger Dan]

Dave,

Rcomended always, desired by some

This is a good enough place as any to get started.

http://www.howtobrew.com/

Have a read, and then we can talk further as to what you need and how to go about it. I used his brown ale recipe as a starter all brew and it worked out great


Dogger

[thehipone]

I think you'll find it a rewarding experience to start doing original recipes. If you've only done no-boil kits I'd probably suggest you do 1 full boil extract brew with specialty grains or a mini-mash supplemented by extract, just to get your feet wet and make sure things will go smoothly (i.ei. does your stove have enough heating power, is your brew kettle big enough, do you have a good way of quickly cooling the hot wort?).

I can't emphasize enough how important it is to have a good mashing setup for AG, as it will save you a lot of frustration.

My first AG recipe was this one:
http://byo.com/recipe/729.html
but pretty much any sort of darker ale is more forgiving than a lager.

[BeerKiller]

Dave, I got hold of some 4.5l demijohns to play around with a few full mash and a partial mashes. I found it a bit easier with smaller amounts of ingredients and everything on a smaller scale to experiment with in the kitchen and if you have a few teething problems, as I did with one batch then you don't end up with 23 litres of beer you are a bit unhappy with. It's also much quicker to get through a few recipes and find what works for you.

That's just the opinion of a novice, but something to think about

Cheers

[Dogger Dan]

Beer Killer,

I would argue the point that it is quicker, Time is everything with all grain or you wont get the starch conversions. I will agree sparging would be quicker.

Additionally, smaller batches behave differently from 5 gallon sizes. so taste etc will not be the same in the larger batch as a small one. We still see this all the time at work when we try and take a product out of the pilot plant and bring it on a full production line.

Just my humble opinion, and today it has been pointed out to me on numerous occasions that I know not what I am talking about. Imagine, condensation forming on the cold water pipes how stupid can I be? It forms on the hot here in Canada apparently. It always forms on the cold ones in my house here but what do I know? Can anyone in the warmer climes confirm this for me? Tell you what, put a cup of tea against a cold beer and let me know which one is sweating? I know its the beer, but that must be because it is worried its going to get drunk.

No Harsh Feelings folks

And I can't get the frinking network to work. Now I have a 100 percent signal but it is just to stupid to talk with the rest of the world. Time for a beer or 12.

Sucks to be my dog today

Dogger

[Guest]

Hi Dogger, just meant it's quicker to turn around the beer only a couple of bottles to sample, I'm still not sure what styles I want to be brewing as I am a bit style illiterate (bought up on commercial stuff, thought a bitter was VB and a lager was Fosters DOH!))
I just found it easier for me to do on a small scale with the very amatuerish setup I've got (wife's kitchen pots and utensils).
Still fumbling and finding my way in the homebrewing process so I hope I'm not leading Dave up the wrong path.

I should probably add a disclaimer to my posts

[Dogger Dan]

Yeh

I have always been a 5 galloner myself for good or bad

Tell me though, are there that many recipies out there for 1 gallon or do you step them down from 5 cause I am thinking you would loose a lot in efficiency and you might need to step up the grains a bit.

And then you are measuring up small hop levels, hard to be consistant. I would hate to try and step one up to a big batch. Just me though, can't argue with success.

By the way, if you are doing all grains, you got more going than most so never feel you need to appologize. Matter of fact, never much need to appologize anyway, normally its me wearing the lemon merangue shoes.

My wife tells me I am about as subtle as a turd in a punch bowl somedays.

Dogger

[BeerKiller]

I have found a couple of recipes especially for 1 gallon on the net and in some old homebrew books ( I haven't looked at stepping down a 5 gallon recipe that would be too hard for me, no doubt there are ways to do it.)

I tried this one first and it worked a treat

Brown Ale
310g Dark DME
60g Cracked Crystal Malt
125g Brown Sugar
30g Fuggles (seems like a lot doesn't it ?)
Bulk Prime = 4 tspns sugar and 2 crushed saccharine tablets

Anyway I've never been a brown ale fan but I polished this of pretty quick and will do it again
I found it very nice even with saccharine, which a few people say can give a funny taste but didn't seem to and it wasn't to hoppy either.

Plus it was ready to drink in 3 weeks 1 week primary, 2 weeks secondary (or so the book said)

On the down side, as you mentioned Dogger, when I did a mild that called for 5ml of caramel it was a bit hard to get that measurement right and that one tasted very very caramely cos I put too much in and there isn't anywhere to hide in 1 gallon. Not a very nice drop unless you like your caramel extra strong !
Not to mention my steeping and sparging methods are hardly scientific or even orthodox but I'll get there

[Shaun]

Have you considered using a baby medicine dropper for those measurements you can get them at any chemist.

[BeerKiller]

Thanks Shaun, I would have one of those in the back of a drawer somewhere and will add it to to my kit.

[Dave]

Thanks guys. You have definitely given me a few good ideas and a great starting point. Dan, I'm slowly working my way through that link you posted, very interesting. I can see massive potential for this home brewing thing.