So I started into the homebrewing with cider and a 1 gallon glass jug. That went well for awhile, then the wife got tired of seeing it around the house. Then we cleaned house when we got a bigger storage unit. We finally had room for some more, experiments...
Birthday hits on Jul 28th, well wife bought me the Mr. Beer Bremasters Select kit with 3x All-Malt craft brews. Those being the Bewitched Amber, Northwest Pale Ale, and Diablo IPA. Ironic thing is the stupid thing was expensive enough to have bought a 5g kit, but I'm ok with the 2g kit at the moment, since it fits nicely in the dark under the bar. Still thinking about getting another fermenter though
Bad thing is, house stays at 75 in the day, 70 at night, and since we are still living with the in-laws not controllable by me, so hoping during the day no off flavors are produced.
I started with the Bewitched Amber as I'm not familiar with Pale Ale and not a fan of the hoppiness of IPA's. Question is for a guy on a budget what are some cheap ways to maybe modify the Pale Ale and IPA to make them more malty and less bitter? I was possibly going to use just the Pale Ale by itself and see if it was something I liked, but the IPA for sure is far more bitter than I usually enjoy, and wanted to try to balance it out.
Many thanks for all of you over the past 6+ years who have contributed to this thread, I just got finished reading EVERY page! Lots of good info, including the 2-2-2- rule (i know some of you do the 3-2-2 rule, I simply do not have the patience) (side note - the "craft" all-malt kits should be good to bottle at 2 weeks yes?) I plan on a minimum of 3 weeks in the bottles themselves + however long I can stand with them in the fridge. I drink enough that I will have 8l gone before the next batch is done so looking forward to doing 5g batches.
Once we move out, looking forward to using a true 5g brew kit, and using the LBK as a cider fermenter.