Newbie starting out. General advice please.

[Damn]

Thinking making my home brew. I have absolutely nothing. Hope to brew, bottle and store in my basement which is rather cool.
Just had some advice from a home brew store but would like a 2nd, 3rd & 4th opion.

Was going to buy thermometer to get min/max temps in basement.
I have an office down there with a side room that is semi heated part of the time.

Should I buy the starters kit with bench bottler & bottle tree? Recommend the best source for this gear?
Would like to bottle in stubbies but will settle for bottles initially. Should I purchase them too?

Hoping to make an American Pale Ale. Is this too ambitious? Are there easier beers to start with.

Maybe I should start with book?

Suggestions please.

[bullfrog]

Lots of questions (which is certainly a good way to start your quest to brewing great beer.)

Bottle trees and bench cappers are great bits of kit to own and make the bottling process a lot easier. These can be sourced from online stores, eBay or your LHBS.

When I started brewing I bottled into stubbies because that's what I was used to drinking out of. You'll find that homebrew (and any beer with any flavour to speak of) is best drunk from a glass, so if that's your motivation then you'll grow out of it quickly. Also, you'll probably find that bottling is the most boring, labour-intensive part of the whole process, so the larger the bottles means the fewer of them and less work to do at bottling time (the main reason I moved to kegs; only one vessel to clean.)

APA is a great style, but you'll probably find difficult to make one just from a kit. If you're prepared to eschew the pre-hopped tins and grab yourself some malt extract, hops and maybe some crystal grain, then you can make a killer APA in a stockpot on the stove. There are heaps of extract APA recipes floating about on the site, so jump over to the recipes section for some inspiration.

[warra48]

Welcome Damn. Hope you enjoy the forum.

APA is a good brew to start with. It's quite forgiving, because of the level of American type hops generally used. They will cover quite a lot of things which would stand out in a beer such as a Pilsner.

I suggest you have a read through these two sticky threads from this site, lots of really good information for a new brewer.
You will find we are a friendly bunch here, and will do our best to help you with any questions.
If you find a conflict between what you are told by the usual HB shop and what is in the stickies, trust the information from this site, not what you are told. Having said that, there are some really good HB shops, but they are in the minority, unfortunately.

I also suggest you fill in your location. You may well find other brewers in your locality who are willing to help.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1966
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1966

As for gear, one of the best purchases you can make initially is to buy a 19 litre SS stockpot from BigW, they're only about $20. It will always be useful, even if you move on to other gear in future.
Defintely, if you are bottling, get the bench capper and bottle tree.

I also started off bottling in stubbies, but eventually grew tired of bottling about 60 stubbies each brew. I still bottle, but in longnecks. However, each batch I also do a couple of stubbies and one PET bottle. The stubbies are for give aways, and the PET bottle I exchange with one of my brewing mates as he uses those exclusively. I acquired most of my bottles at my golfclub, by recycling them from the bins around the course!

[barrelboy]

Hi Damn and welcome. EBay is not a bad place for bottles and brewing gear, check out under "home brews" and "beer bottles". Now before you brew anything get to understand cleaning and sanitizing your equipment and bottles. This is imperative, you can make the best brew ever and wreck it through poor cleaning and sanitizing. As stated above do searches on this forum as all the info is here. As a suggestion my first brew would be a simple kit & kilo, say a Coopers draught or Canadian blonde with a Coopers Enhancer No.2. I say this as they are simple to do and will give you the "feel" of brewing. Hope this helps and ask questions if in doubt etc.
Cheers BB

[Sonny]

Welcome Damn, I'm new to the game as well and I have moved through to extract and partial style brewing myself but find my valuable time rather limited so moving to the quality and control of 'all grain' brewing is currently suspended.

But, my big tip is if you'd like to make a quality yummy brew and you can overcome the desire to create your own brews from trial and error, then go to the Country Brewer shop in your area and get a WetPak. They do a ripper APA too!

Admittedly it's a small step up from just hopped extract, but the instructions provided do make it a small step. All you have to do is keep stuff clean, preparation is the key to brewing as also everything else in life.

[Guru]

Welcome Damn, all good advice supplied above, generally way better than you will get at a lot of homebrew shops. I can recommend barrelboy's suggestion of the Coopers can and brew enhancer 2 as a good starter. They make pretty good beer and are almost foolproof as long as keep everything sanitised and keep the temp at a reasonable level.

I always bottle my brews and have collected bottles (longnecks and stubbies) by just letting friends know that I need them. I now have at least 300-400 bottles (much to the wife's disgust)

Good luck and happy brewing.
Guru

[Marty]

Welcome Damn! All of the advice above is spot on. This forum is a really valuable resource and will offer advice and suggestions without bias (unlike most Home Brew Shops). You will find that in many areas (racking springs immediately to mind) there is no "right" way to do things so keep an open mind and try various recipes and techniques as everyone will have an opinion.

In my experience it is difficult to make an undrinkable beer. I'm not as experienced as most of the posters (I'm about to bottle my 29th brew) but I have found that no matter what the end result has always been drinkable. Some beers are definitely better than others but they have all been consumed!

I would advise keeping notes (I write in a notebook but there are brewing programs out there as well) of every brew you make. Note the ingredients used, boil times, temperature etc. This makes it easy to replicate winning brews and also makes it easy when asking for help on the forum as one of the first questions asked will be about ingredients.

Marty

[Damn]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Here's my plan. I will purchase a coopers micro brew kit either new or ebay.
I will brew the Canandian Blonde with the coopers enhancer #2 as suggested. Or is there something as easy closer to the APA taste. I'm trying to get the Fat Yak taste or ultimately Mountain goat steam ale.

Then I will move up to the Wetpak as suggested. Does this come under any other names?

Any other suggestions rather than a wetpak?

[Sonny]

Damn, most the boys here are 'All Grainers' (I made that term up I think). They wouldn't think of doing a Wetpak as is sold by the Country Brewer shops because they can ultimately do better with mashing and boiling grains. But it takes them more time and effort, not to mention knowledge to get that great taste of a real beer, and I mean great.
I don't have the time, nor the knowledge and experience that is required to create great beers from grain, yet anyway. I like to make a good brew inside 90mins and after 50 brews I have discovered the Wetpaks to be an exceptional homebrew product that will provide a very similar beer to that of an all grainer without the time and effort.
The only downfall is that we cannot accept the accolades for the recipe, but I tell you what, you just can't buy beerin a shop like it.
Have fun with it all mate, plan your own recipes, copy recipes, but Wetpaks, whatever. Just enjoy it and learn as you go.
Now as for a kit, if you actually know what you need, then you can save some dosh and buy a red lidded vessel from Bunnings, drill a hole into the lid, buy a rubber grommet and then run a small hose into a bottle of water for an airlock. Cheap.
Don't even worry about the hydrometer, and just watch the krausen and leave it ferment for 14 days. You just won't know the actual Alcohol content.
Some one here was talking about the mate some months ago brewing beer in bucket in the laundry sink with a tea towel draped over the top and was winning awards for his beer, gee how easy is that!
Enjoy it Damn.

[earle]

Even better, get a bunnings fermenter, chuck away the lid and use glad wrap accross the top held in place by the rubber o-ring from inside the lid.

Similar to Sonny, I haven't made the move to all-grain yet however my experience with wet-packs or fresh wort kits is different. Immediately before I made my Black Sheep clone that barrelboy received in the recent lotto, I made a Black Goat FWK from craftbrewer. It cost twice as much but I preferred my extract version. Maybe it was just the one I tried but I'm not rushing back to get another FWK. With spec grains, hops, good yeast, fresh extract and good fermentation control you can make quite a good beer, some (not mine) have even won awards against all-grain beers.

Here's a link ot a thread which has both kits'n'bits and all-grain recipes for Fat Yak since thats one you mentioned. http://www.homebrewandbeer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=9790&hilit=fat+yak

[SimonG]

Hi Damn,

Welcome to the forum.
I think doing an APA is a great idea for inexperienced brewers and it's really pretty easy. The hops will give you plenty of flavour and aroma and should help to cover any imperfections and "kit twang".
I just opened my first bottle of my AG Fat Yak (version 2) recipe last night and it is still a bit young (only 1 week in the bottle) but its going to be great .
I only did 4 kit and kilo/ kits and bits brews before I moved to AG 2 years ago. My first three brews were Aussie and belgian lagers and were very average, but for my last kits and bits brew I did an APA with a 10min stove top boil for the hops and it turned out fantastic. This brew was what insired me to learn more and try AG brewing. I'm hooked now and I haven't looked back since.

Here is the method I used and should give you something pretty similar (not an extact clone) to Fat Yak and be very drinkable.
- 1 x Can Coopers Pale Ale
- 1kg LDME
- 20g Cascade hops
- 20g Nelson Sauvin hops
- 1 x Packet US05 yeast (throw away the kit yeast)

Boil 4L of water in a pot on the stove and disolve 400g of the LDME in it
Add 10g Cascade and 10g Nelson Sauvin and boil for 10mins
At the end of the 10min boil turn the heat off and add another 10g of Cascade and 10g Nelson Sauvin and leave for 2mins
Pour the contents of the pot through a sieve and into your fermenter
Pour the contents of the Coopers tin (sit the tin in a some hot water for 5-10mins prior to soften it and make it easier to get the contents out) into the fermenter along with the remaining 600g of LDME and give it a stir to dissolve everything.
Once dissolved fill the fermenter with 20L of cold tap water take a SG reading and seal the fermenter
When the temperature of the fermenter contents has dropped to 20C sprinkle in the yeast and give the wort a good stir to aerate it then re-seal the fermenter and ferment at 18-20C
I usually leave my brews in the fermenter for 2-3weeks then bottle.

I hope that this is useful.

Cheers
Simon