Nice and Easy

[dirtyfoot]

Looking for a nice and easy recipe for my second batch I seem to lean towards the lighter Lagers and Ales any suggestions. I got an ingerdient kit from Homebrewers Outpost called Wolf Creek Cream Ale it is a medium body brew and I really liked so much I actully plan on ordering some more but I do not want to get stuck in a rut and I want to try some new stuff do any suggestions would be great!

Thanks for your help in advance

[john mills]

Let me preclude this with I'm not an extract brewer. In fact I've only assisted with 1 extract batch before I became an all grain brewer, and that was about 15 years ago, so the procedure of mixing up the dry malt extract and water may be wrong, but it is how I would do it to prevent a big mess and guessing volumes.

About as light and easy as any 5 gallon recipe:
4 # Dry Malt Extract - Light (or amber if you're looking for a change)
1 # table sugar
1 oz of Centennial hops boil for 20 min.
Dry yeast like Safeale US05, Safeale US04, or Danstar Nottingham

Place malt extract and sugar in the largest pot you have on hand add filtered water until the pot is 3/4 full, stir to dissolve then place on stove. Watch closely as boil over will abruptly end your brewing career in the kitchen. Start 20 minute timer when wort comes to boil and you add in the hops. Cool pot covered in your sink with an ice and water bath.
Pour cooled wort slowly into fermenter and top off with previously boiled and cooled filtered water to reach 5 gallons.
Shake fermenter to oxygenate the wort for 5 min.
Take hydrometer reading and record. (It should be about 1.046).
Add dry yeast according to package instructions (or simply just add to fermenter and shake again for a minute)
Place on air lock, and move fermenter to fermentation area where the temperature maintains 65-75 degrees.
Basically let fermenter set untouched for 2 weeks.
At end of 2 weeks take another hydrometer reading. It should be 1.008-1.012. if it's higher let it set for another week, or 2.
Transfer to bottling bucket and prime with 1/4 cup sugar. If you like more carbonation use 1/3 cup sugar.
Place bottles in same 65-75 degree space for 2 weeks minimum to carbonate.
Enjoy.

[dirtyfoot]

Thanks for the recipe I will give it a try

[snowrs]

I will state for the record that I am a noob but, if you looking to just brew the kits from Midwest, Northern, or Austin would be in both of our interest, my first and only batch so far was a Midwest Boundary Waters Wheat but it was really straight forward and came with everything including steeping grains which will give some character, and the hops seperated for each addition. From what I have read the three companies I mentioned above are really reputable, I chose Midwest because that is where I bought my equipment. Do your self a favor and plan ahead a couple of brew days and order multiple kits and save the shipping. Again I am a noob so take this for what it is worth, the experienced guys may tell me I have drank to much to suggest this.

[Chris Norrick]

Those are indeed high quality companies and they sell high quality kits and many excellent brews have been made from them! And most will list exactly what the specialty grains are if you ever want to branch out and swap out some of them on future brews for experimentation.

[Michael Erwin]

Agreeing with what's posted above... I've brewed several Midwest kits before. Good stuff. You'll like the beer you make too when you start steeping grains, it adds a lot to the flavor and color.

I'd add, if you're into books, get Papazian's Joy of Homebrewing. It's not the most technical book out there, but it will jump start your brewing savvy, and there's tons of great extract recipes in there, of all different kinds of styles. .

[BM1]

IMHO,you should check out How to Brew by John Palmer.Invariably,when I surf for info on just about any Homebrew subject,I end up finding best anwers and refereces there.

http://www.howtobrew.com/sitemap.html .Couldn't hurt and you won't be sorry.

[dirtyfoot]

yea my first kit was from homebrewers and it was with steeping grains and turned out great kinda want to stay in that realm for awhile until i get a good grip on thes hobby.


Thanks for all the great feed back it is great to know you all got my back