What’s up everyone! I’m new to brewing and looking to learn how to get better. I’ve brewed two 1 gallon batches so far that turned out pretty good (to me anyway). Just got my kegerator and fermentation chamber set up so I’m going to move up to 3 gallons. I’ve only done extract brews so far. I’m still a little confused on recipe building and all that. Not sure if I’m ready to do anything like all grain brewing yet. Does anyone have any tips or tricks they have learned along the way that they wish they had known when they started out?
Welcome! I’m pretty new to brewing, myself. 
I started out with extract but it didn’t take me long to try out BIAB (brew in a bag), which is a pretty easy way to get started with all-grain. I’ve had some great results with BIAB so far. I’m starting to see some limits to it, but it depends on how advanced you want to get.
There’s a ton of great posts here and I’ve been learning a lot, myself.
I’m only 2 ½ years ahead of you but here’s what I’ve learned so far.
1a. Don’t assume that all-grain is automatically better than extract. Water chemistry, hops, yeast, fermentation time & temp, adjuncts, fruit … all contribute to the recipe.
1b. Also don’t assume that jumping to all grain has to be hard or expensive. You can switch to all grain BIAB with your existing hardware + a grain bag.
1c. Don’t assume that switching to all grain is a one-way street. The shorter brew day of extract fits my life better right now; so that’s what I’m doing right now.
2. Don’t assume that bigger is automatically better. I’ve settled on 8-10L as the batch size that works for me.
3. Don’t assume that gadgets make better beer.
4. Don’t forget it’s a hobby: it’s supposed to be fun. Find what works for you and makes beer (or cider or mead or wine) that you like.
Agreed that reading complete books is important then you will have specific questions for the forum. You don’t need to worry about recipe building just yet, kits or established recipes are fine. Fermentation temperature is a good thing to concentrate on.
FYI I have some books available including HTB in the classified section near the bottom.
Stick to dry yeast until you have firm footing in brewing. It will produce consistent results and is very forgiving. As you gain more confidence, you can try liquid yeast if you choose and dive into starters, pitch rate, aeration, etc. But for now, dry yeast is your ticket to getting good beer.
+1
The best advice (among a ton of great advice) that you will get on this forum.
You can make really good beer with extract, just be sure it’s fresh. And be diligent with cleaning and sanitation.
The best advice I can give you is go get a copy of the 4th ed. of John Palmer’s “How to Brew”. It will take you from yiur first batch all the way through advanced topics. There is no better source of info.
I was going to try BIAB next! I’ve got an 8gal kettle so it shouldn’t be a problem. I get my kits from Northern Brewer and I should be able to do two batches with a 5gal kit I think. Do you do any kind of sparging with BIAB or do you just top off the fermenter? Also are you buying your grains pre milled or doing it yourself? Is there any benifit or downside to either?
I haven’t gotten into water chemistry just yet. Our city water isn’t bad but not the best either. I’ve been using RO water.
I’ve actually got a batch of mead in the cabinet that’s in secondary fermentation that’s about to hit the 2 month mark. I was going to bottle it this weekend.
A book is a very good idea. I’ll definitely look into picking one up. I’ve been YouTubing a lot of stuff which has helped but they do not always explain some of the things in detail like I would like.
My last batch was an Ale and the next one will be also so I picked up some US-05. I’ve heard liquid yeast can have some benefits over dry but if not used in a certain time frame it’s not as effective. Is that correct?
I picked up some PBW soon after my first brew. I’ve seen a lot of people that use Oxiclean also. What are you using?
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Don’t believe “If the water tastes good, you can brew with it.” At a minimum, remove chlorine or chloramine depending on your source water. It’s hard to make a good beer with chlorinated water.
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Use the freshest ingredients you can get. Hops at home brew stores rarely list harvest year. Yeast has an expiration date. Use a homebrew shop that rotates it’s malt extract stock. When the time comes, grain can be bought by lot number and stored in an airtight container.
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Control fermentation temps as best you can. Hot fermentation affects the flavor of beer. Rarely in a good way.
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Keep beer cold and drink it fresh. Hot beer stales fast. Stale beer sux.
5. It’s just home brewed beer. Not brain surgery. Make what you like how you like it. You can get as technical or superficial as you need to to enjoy yourself.
I’m using RO water right now. I haven’t worked up to water chemistry yet but have been looking into it.
I’m using Northern Brewer kits right now and they are pretty simple so I like that as a beginner. Do you have any recommendations on the best places to order quality ingredients from?
I just got my fermentation chamber setup. Used an old mini fridge I had and put in an Inkbird controller with a seedling heat mat and spare computer fan.
I BIAB exclusively. Batches are 3 gallons into the fermenter, 2.5 gallons packaged. I use an 8 gallon kettle. I full volume mash (no top-up needed), and never sparge.
I mill my own grain (on my Kitchen Aid) and will say that for consistency, milling yourself is the way to go. But it isn’t a requirement. If you have your grain pre-milled, you may want to let whoever is doing it know that you will be brewing in a bag. Generally, BIAB benefits from a finer grain crush.
The biggest tricks with BIAB are 1) finding the perfect grain crush and 2) getting your volumes correct. That is, knowing what your losses will be. Grain absorption, boil off, kettle losses and fermenter losses all have to factored in when determining your batch size. As a quick example, a pretty standard beer for me will require approximately 5 gallons of mash water. By the time my losses add up, I have 3 gallons into the fermenter and 2.5 gallons in the keg.
Cheers!
I’ve got a 3 gal Fermonster that I’m using. How do you go about calculating your volumes or is it a trial and error thing? I’ve seen people state calculations for gallons per pound of grain, but what are you doing to calculate your losses in the fermenter or is the mash volume more important?
The numbers I have settled on have come from jotting down what happens during every brew. Eventually, once I got my crush where I wanted, all the numbers kind of fell in line and became easily repeatable.
Here’s a recent beer I brewed and how it all adds up:
6.5 # Grain for a 1.047 OG beer
Grain absorption = .11 gallons/lb
Boil Off Rate - .67 gallons/hour
Kettle Loss - .625 gallons
Fermenter Loss - .5 gallon
Count backwards…
2.5 gallons packaged
- .5 gallon Fermenter Loss (yeast, hops, whatever that gets left in the fermenter)
- .625 gallon Kettle Loss (gunk that gets left behind in the kettle during transfer to fermenter, a completely fungible number)
- .67 gallon boil off (assuming a lazy, 1 hour boil)
- .715 gallon grain absorption
Total Mash water = 5.01 gallons or 5 gallons for homebrewing purposes.
Grain absorption is going to be greatly influenced by exactly how long and how hard you decide to squeeze the bag after mashing. I squeeze only enough to hit my “Pre-Boil” volume and stop there. My “Pre-Boil” volume is ALWAYS 4.3 gallons (2.5 + .5 + .625 + .67).
Which leads to another point if you are using a standard kettle: Try and find a reliable way to measure your kettle volumes. There are a lot of ways to do this, but I ended up filling my kettle to different levels and measuring with a stainless steel ruler. So as an example, my typical strike volume of 5 gallons in my kettle = 7-1/4" on the ruler. My “Pre-Boil” volume (the volume to which I squeeze the bag) of 4.3 gallons = 6-1/4".
Hope this helps. Good luck.
Northern Brewer is a high volume dealer so extract, grain, yeast should be fresh. I would look into Yakima Valley Hops, Yakima Chief Hops, Hop Heaven, etc for current harvest year hops.
I saw after I posted that you said you use RO water. Water chemistry is a topic for a later time. I’ll just say keep it simple. It can get out of hand.
Your ferm chamber sounds awesome.