Just getting started
- Thread starter colbreeze
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
I recommend finding a local homebrewing club. Watch someone brew a batch, ask questions. Buy one of the 'How to Brew' books. Read it as you are accumulating brewing gear. Good luck and welcome to the obsession!
Yup, I would start out with a simple extract kit with a packet of DRY yeast and get your brewing instructions from here, not the instruction sheet. That will help you learn the process of boiling the beer and basic sanitation for your fermentation. You'll also likely want some tubing and a racking cane (or autosiphone) to transfer the beer. A bottling bucket would also be nice and they're fairly cheap. Do you have a local homebrewing supply shop? They should have everything you need, but do a little reading here and figure out what you want before you go in. LHBS owners can be a little old-school, plus they're trying to get you to buy as much stuff as possible. There are also several excellent online retailers.
Also- you need to be able to control the temperature of your fermenting beer (not just the ambient temperature), and WAIT to add your yeast until the beer is cooler than your optimum temperature, as it will warm up. It can be as simple as wrapping a wet towel around the carboy and pointing a fan at it, or a bucket with some frozen water bottles in it. Your LHBS should have a stick-on thermometer for your carboy. Put some packing tape over it to protect it and it's a pretty good estimate of your beer temp. I wish somebody had told me about fermentation and yeast pitching temperatures before I got started- it's the most important thing to do to make sure your first batch turns out tasty, and not awful like mine.
Also- you need to be able to control the temperature of your fermenting beer (not just the ambient temperature), and WAIT to add your yeast until the beer is cooler than your optimum temperature, as it will warm up. It can be as simple as wrapping a wet towel around the carboy and pointing a fan at it, or a bucket with some frozen water bottles in it. Your LHBS should have a stick-on thermometer for your carboy. Put some packing tape over it to protect it and it's a pretty good estimate of your beer temp. I wish somebody had told me about fermentation and yeast pitching temperatures before I got started- it's the most important thing to do to make sure your first batch turns out tasty, and not awful like mine.
Are you close to a Homebrew Shop? Most will have demonstrations on the weekends also check out YouTube and buy Johm Palmers book "how to brew" a wealth of knowledge in the book! Good luck and happy brewing to you!
Midwest is a really good one. Fresh quality ingredients,all the other stuff you need too. Plus a knowledgable staff that can help you with technical problems on live chat. Can't beat that.
Midwest supplies is a great online vendor, as is Northern Brewer and Austin Homebrew Supply. About 20m from Joliet there's Chicago Brew Werks. Haven't been there, but it's always good to know where one is for an emergency packet of yeast or last minute brewday.
