Hello Hello

Been reading the boards for awhile and finally signed up. Finished my home bar and now finally getting ready to start brewing. Have already found loads of useful info here and looking forward to learning more.

Currently have 100 empty beer bottles and 275 empty wine bottles all ready and waiting. Still unsure what I want to start with, any suggestions for a first time brewer just getting into this?

Brewing extract or all grain? My philosophy has always been to jump in the deep end. I suppose you could make a really light pilsner, the recipe would be very simple and hard to mess up but......the final beer is going to be about as exciting as staring at a blank wall. I vote make your favorite style of beer! Oatmeal Stout? do it! Super hoppy high-gravity IPA? hell yea! You are going to learn continuously and get better and better as you go, might as well learn while making beer you enjoy.

Hard Apple Cider is a nice way to dip your toe in the pool (another swimming analogy) You can't get much easier than putting juice in a bucket and throwing beer yeast on top of it. It will allow you to see how well you can control your temperatures and sanitation.

Welcome to the group. Wine is easy and awesome. Ed Wort's Apfelwein is easy and excellent. Beer wise, I'd start with a kit, my first was a Black IPA that was awesome. Pick a style you love.

I second the kit suggestion. I tried recipes I'd read for my first two attempts, but felt like I learned more with the kit I brewed 3rd. Ironically enough... it was a black IPA.

Brooklyn brew shop has nice 1 gallon kits (AG). And fun beers. Any questions, email them and they'll help you out. After three 1 gallon batches I had to move up to a 5 gallon kit though (which they don't offer). After a few you wont need ingredient kits. I'd skip the extract. Kinda like making a box of Mac & Cheese. You're cooking it but you're not making the sauce. Currently drinking my IPA (6.4 ABV), just bottled Chocolate Raspberry Porter and Chocolate Maple Porter (both 6.8 ABV) and just racked my Fat Tire Clone (6.9 ABV) into secondary. Once you start brewing you won't be able to stop!

Grabbed the last few supplies i needed and a kit of american amber that came with 1lb of caramel 3 1/2 of liquid malt and 2 1/2 dried malt along with 1.5 oz hops, got everything started and is now fermenting. Figured the kit would be a good way to get started as well, although the directions said to just sprinkle the dried yeast on top, the yeast package itself called for rehydrating before pitching so went ahead and did it that way. Now just have to play the waiting game to see how it all comes out. Thanks for the tips and advice all.

Forgot to note, after i topped of my wort to 5 gallons i was getting a OG reading of 1.3 as opposed to the 1.5 the kit suggested, could this possibly be because after topping off i didnt mix with the wort well enough and just pulled more water?