First home brew - please help!

How close does your plan hew to the instructions that come with the kit?

First timers are well advised to keep both hands on the wheel.

 

Welcome to the hobby! You seem to have your plan well under control. I would not add any additional sugar - your recipe will be fine. The 20 minute pre-hop boil will not really gain you anything, but shouldn't really hurt either, except perhaps to darken the color. Many here will say to skip the secondary, and just leave the beer in primary until it's done. This is personal choice - I use secondaries most of the time. Either way, don't use the calendar to decide when to rack or bottle. Check gravity if possible and wait until there is no change for three days before bottling.

Happy brewing!

 

I'm assuming you mean 4 gallon boiling pot, not 4 quart! Also don't forget to clean and sanitize everything!

 

Why?

 

Generally yes. Unless you have a specific goal in mind.

 

As a noobie to the hobby as well, I would follow the directions as closely as you can. It will be much easier to diagnose a problem should one develop. Also, after you follow the directions and you know how the beer will taste/smell/bitter/etc. you can adjust the recipe next time and see how changing the mix affects the attributes of the beer.

It may just be how you typed it but you will get a more uniform mix if you add the priming sugar solution to the bottling bucket before you transfer from secondary to the bottling bucket.

Good luck!

 

May want to make sure to bring the wort temperature down below 100 before pitching your yeast. I typically shoot to get it as close to 70 as possible.

 

The nice thing about brew day is you don't really have to get crazy with sanitizing because of the boiling. Just make sure your funnel and carboy are sanitized and I always use a piece of sanitized foil over carboy (unless using a bucket) for the first couple days then replace with a sanitized air lock just in case fermentation goes crazy it prevents a carboy bomb at 2a in the morning like my first batch did.

 

I would also add don't worry about racking to a secondary carboy. Most instructions will tell you to do that but you don't need to unless you plan on dry hopping or something. You'll just increase the chance of infection or oxidation, but if you really want to it and you're careful about it you'll be fine, don't worry about it. The extra boil is not necessary unless you're looking for more caramelization. Also make sure you check your gravity before bottling to make sure the beer is done fermenting, don't base this assumption on airlock activity or time. Definitely follow the instructions for your first batch so you can get an idea of the process. Once you have the process down its easier to start doing other things to make the beer interesting. At the end of the day don't stress about what you're doing, relax don't worry have a homebrew.

 

Forget about the extra 20 min. On your first batch, when the wort begins to boil, you need to watch out for a boil over. Adding the hops will help a bit at this point, but keep your hand on the gas valve until you get a nice boil and the foam layer has broken. When you add the malt, kill the flame until the malt is completely dissolved. With a 4 gal pot, if you have three gal of water in before you add the malt, you are going to be fairly close to the top after you add malt. So just watch out for boil overs.
I don't recommend deviating from the original recipe on your first batch. Learn the basics, learn your equipment and brew a great beer that you'll be proud of. If your first tastes like shit, how excited are you going to be about your second?

 

Tips:
1) Since you are adding more water to the fermenter to bring the total up to 5 gallons, you may as well make sure that this extra water is as cold as possible. Put it in the fridge the night before. Try to get the wort temperature to under 70F before pitching your yeast. I'd even rather wait overnight for this to happen if necessary, despite the increased risk of contamination.

2) Yes, you can skip the secondary, just transfer directly from primary into the bottling bucket when fermentation is complete (meaning that the gravity has not changed after taking readings a few days apart). At this time, you boil the 5oz of priming sugar in a little water and add this to the bottling bucket too.

3) You can add 1/2 lb of granulated sugar to the boil if you want to lighten the body (I think many extract brews taste a little thick), but it's not necessary. Your beer, your choice.

 

Simply adding sugar to an already existing extract recipe will not lighten the body, in order to lighten the body you need to replace an equal gravity of extract with sugar.

 

I generally wait until hot break occurs (which is less than 20 minutes), but that's mainly so I don't end up with a lot of hop pellets stuck to the side of my kettle, carried there by the foam that occurs before break. By waiting until the foam falls and break occurs, my hops stay in the wort.

But that's just me. It's certainly not necessary.

 

I use a 1/2 of a campden tablet to treat Chloromines that are found in my tap water. My 1st two batches had a off flavors without it. Quick tip I wish I would have had as a beginner. Here are a few more tips that I wish I known before my 1st batch. Others have touched on a few.

1. Cool wort as quickly as possible to 70 degrees or below before pitching yeast. I prefer 62-65. Shake bucket to oxygenate wort, then pitch yeast after pitching yeast do everything to keep oxygen away.
2. Keep ambient (room) temp in the mid 60's. Fermentation can increase temps as much as 3-4 degrees. (High fermentation temps can cause off flavors)
3. Dont use a secondary, can cause more harm than good. (infection, oxygenation)
4. A 60 min boil is plenty long enough for your recipe. When adding hops/extract watch for boil over) adjust flame or have hot pads ready to take pot off flame)
5. Add your syrup add the beginning of the boil with flame off to prevent scorching. Stir in the remaining DME with 15 min left. (This is highly recommended for extract brewers, adding all extract at beginning will cook and darken color, possibly add off flavors)
6. Get a bottling wand to connect to bucket, putting beer in bottle from spout will get tons of oxygen in beer(bad).
7. Sanitize everything! Including bottling bucket, all gaskets (bucket lid, bucket spout, air locks, bottles, wand, ect.
8. Takes notes on recipe and process to make it easier to remake recipe, find issues, pinpoint what worked well, ect
9. Dont freak out if fermentation doesn’t start immediately

You dont want to get to complicated with your first batch but you also want it to taste good. Citra can be very fruity and tropical. For me I would take the "flavor and aroma" hops, mix them together and add half at 10 min and half as soon as you turn of the flame(known as 0min, knockout or flameout) it gives a lot of aroma without the extra step of dry hopping.( wait to get one of two under your belt before dryhopping, IMO). I would also get a fresh pack of us-05 to use as yeast (personal preference).

I am assuming you are shooting for a Pale Ale with you ingrediants. IMO , leave out the Caramel malt. Your amber extract will already have carmel malt in it. Save it for your second batch to use with light or extra light dme. Keep it simple for your first batch.

Easy Extract Recipe/Process

Bring water to a boil
Turn off flame- add extract syrup, stir well
Bring back to boil- at this point your 60 min boil starts.
Add 1st bittering charge (60min)
Wait 45 min
Add all dme (15 min)
10 min 1 oz hops (your choice)
0 min add 1 oz hops (your choice)
Cool to 65 or so pitch yeast (your choice)

Enjoy your new hobby, read a lot, also videos can be very hepful, Thebrewingnetwork.com, Brewing TV @ Northernbrewer.com, howtobrew.com, youtube, ect.

Good Luck.