Hey hey, I'll introduce myself.

Been lurking occasionaly for some time, but finally decided to join. Hello!

Got an amber ale extra brew fermenting in primary and things are going quite well. Should be racking on Sunday to secondary.

Not sure where the beer passion is going, but I am liking it so far.

I am also a bit of a video blogger and I plan on actually putting a video of my first brew up. I am doing a lot of editing and of course I have weeks until it's done, but it's a fun video it should look pretty good once it's done.

Cheers! Looking forward to lots of useful information from the site.

Welcome to the brew club! Always cool to see new folks getting into the hobby. I have been doing it for a couple years now and I am hooked. Your passion for it will definitely kick up a few notches if your first brew is successful and tasty. Hope it does for ya! Dont be afraid to ask for tips. Theres plenty of helpful people and helpful forums to check out. Good luck and cheers!

Welcome. All the answers are here, cleverly hidden in piles of other stuff.

Good luck with your first one.

hey there smakawhat

you may want to look into the "need for secondary" debate. moving your beer to secondary is the traditional way of homebrewing. a new school of thought is that secondary isn't required for most beers, and the risks of oxidation and infection outweigh the benefits of just keeping the beer in primary. some folks still use secondaries, personally i don't unless the recipe specifically needs it (extended bulk aging, adding fruit, etc). just leave it in primary for 3 weeks, cold crash it at the end, and i get all the advantages of secondary without risking my beer.

sweetcell said:

hey there smakawhat

you may want to look into the "need for secondary" debate..

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HEY WHAT'S GOING ON!?

yeee...ahh.. yeah believe me I saw that thread and read it... I was aware.

The recipe calls for it, but I am at a point where I want to play with all my toyz!! So that's part of the reason I just feel like doing it anyway.

The biggest issue I had was I hate my stove, and the kettle I used didn't have a good bottom. It did work (well maybe guess we'll see), but I had to basically put my weight on the handles to unbuckle the base so I could get more rolling boil.

God I miss my gas range...

Everything so far is going good, but I also screwed up my first gravity reading but I'll check it when I rack.

Should be an entertaining vid.

I am sure bottling day will be interesting for 5 minutes, and then I'll start hating it just like everyone says...

imbibehour said:

HEY WHAT'S GOING ON!?

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clearly i'm stalking you.

imbibehour said:

The recipe calls for it, but I am at a point where I want to play with all my toyz!! So that's part of the reason I just feel like doing it anyway.

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perfectly understandable. the toys are definitely part of the fun.

imbibehour said:

God I miss my gas range...

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if ever you have some cash to burn, you could invest in something like this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/t/100056313?catalogId=10053#.UWb6nldKtcI

i have a gas range and it takes a loooooong while to boil 5 gallons. i bought a propane burner so i could move to full boils (start with ~7.5 gals, end with 6). no way i could do that on the stove.

imbibehour said:

I am sure bottling day will be interesting for 5 minutes, and then I'll start hating it just like everyone says...

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i'm one of the rare people that doesn't hate bottling. you get to play with neat toys and i find it to be rather zen. also, it's the only part of brewing that i feel i can get someone else involved in. i'm too much of a control freak on brew days :rockin:

No not stalking.. just my usual greeting. I actually was looking online at these burners today already.

They'll fix several problems:

1) It should balance my kettle.
2) I can brew outside with a quick entrance to my basement for storage.
3) I wont stink up my house.
4) possible upgrade for bigger kettles/all grain equip in the future.
5) accidents wont happen in my house for messes

3 Isn't a problem really, but it will keep my wife sane. House smelled great that day, it was like my visits to the breweries but I didn't have to leave home