First Brew, Any good?

Very first batch was a 3 gallon batch. A stout - extract with specialty grains that used tap water (i don't remember a huge chlorine issue with that batch so that house i was renting may have had an inline filter), yeast pitched in the high 70's (mind you I cooled it down by spraying the kettle with a garden hose and then sticking it in a bucket with ice water) and fermented in a closet (~68 ambient if i remember).

I was excited when it was coming out of primary as I could ACTUALLY drink it. It was a little fusel-y, but it was drinkable and I figured it would "only get better with age." Hey, what a perfect time to add cold brewed coffee and make it a coffee stout as I bottled up my 30 beers or so.






...... I ended up with 30 bottle bombs about 3 weeks later. Every....single...bottle infected.

Luckily I had brewed my SECOND batch while the first one was in primary and the second one was ready not too long after and it was decent enough to keep me going.

 

My first beer was an extract kit called Atlantic Amber. It used LME. It was probably my worst beet that I've brewed, but it was drinkable. I have had 2-3 others that were also not as tasty as I'd like, and I think each was a kit that also used LME. Now, if I find a new recipe that I want to brew, and it calls for LME, I either pass on it or substitute DME.

 

My first porter was brewed at about 85F with Nottingham. It was rough for the first 3 months. After that it was drinkable.

 

After about 5 miserable to mediocre batches (continuous improvement, though) I quit brewing from 1992-2005 to get serious about other stuff. I found serious to be less rewarding than beer and members of this site convinced me in 2005 to I could brew beer and get better at it, eventually making stuff that I truly like, which took 3 more batches.

 

Like @FFreak and @pweis909 , I have a long hiatus in my homebrewing. My first batch in 1991 was an Irish Red Ale that came out tolerable but underwhelming, thin in flavor and body. My other batches in the early 90s were similar. When it started to become easier to buy good microbrews at the store, I had less interest in spending the time to make my own.

I restarted two years ago with what was supposed to be an extract IPA. I wound up using too much crystal, and it was C120. But the beer wound up surprisingly enjoyable even though it was nothing like what I intended. 25 batches later, I am making beers that I really enjoy including a couple of delicious lagers.

One more first batch story - my son made his first two batches at college this year, and I got to try them both. They were okay, but steeping trains would have helped. I think they were better than my early 90s first batch. (That's him in my profile pic when he was younger making Alpha King hands out of forks at the FFF brewpub.)

 

Ha! My first was in 1995, my buddies and I found a homebrew shop and bought some dusty old kit that I can't remember what it was supposed to be. We had a Papazian book(volume 1, from a used book store) and tried to make a recipe from it with the ingredients we already had. It was nasty, smelled like iodophor sanitizer, made a mess with the sanitizer, was crazy sweet and oxidized. The next batch was an "ale" with "ale" yeast, malt and hops! That's how they were labeled! It was ok, suprisingly! We were now hooked and off we went to make many, many, bad brews and a few tasty ones along the way. We all are still at it pretty regularly too!!

 

1st batch of any sort was a small all-in-one "brew by numbers" kit from my mother in law. Came out drinkable but far from special.
Now, my first all grain beer was an oatmeal stout that came out awesome and I haven't looked back (to extract brewing or bottling) ever since.

 

Me and a buddy of mine did research on brewing for 2 or 3 months before we started. We were so fearful of infection that everytime we touched something that wasn't sanitized we washed our hands. By the end of the day our hands were raw from all the washing. We did 2 extract kits (smoked porter and red ale). Turned out great. In all honesty I've only had 1 batch out of 50 or so turn out undrinkable. A few may not have hit to style and I felt dissapointed, but when I thought about them as a different style I was pleased. I can't imagine not brewing. I haven't brewed in a while (thanks to Halliburton's insane downsizing) but I hope to start up again soon.

 

My first few batches were while I was a teenager of some stuff that we aren't allowed to talk about here, and they were god-awful, but the goal back then was pretty much to get lit, and its not like they were that much worse than Natty Ice.
Picked it back up around 10 years later when I got a homebrew kit for Xmas. First batch was an extract w/ special grains oatmeal stout that I added some spices and baker's chocolate to. I loved it at the time, but I don't think I would now. Second batch was horrid, third was great, and it went that way for quite a while with about average batches with the occasional great and one disgusting until I hit about batch 20-25, when I started to make consistently good brews.

 

I did something similar with an early kit. Pitched at about the temperature you would proof yeast, which made a certain amount of sense if you have no idea what you are doing and only know a bit about baking.

 

My first beer was terribbblllleeeeeee. I bottled before fermentation was done and it came out way overcarbonated. Taste was not good as well.

 

My first one was a Mr. Beer Coors light clone. It was a mess of green apples, diacetyls, and an obvious acetobacter infection. Having realized that the kit had expired, I brewed another Mr. Beer kit(Patriot Ale )which was still in date. This time I used safale yeast and switched to starsan for sanitation. That one turned out better with no infection. Had a terrible extract twang though.
After that, I bought equipment to do 5 gal batches and got my beer kits from other suppliers. My 5 gal batches have been much better. In fact, I brewed an Imperial IPA about 3 months ago, and it was Fantastic! My point is, if your going to try a hand at homebrewing, don't bother with Mr. Beer. Go ahead and get the proper equipment to do bigger batches.
Secondly, If your first batch doesn't turn out very well, don't give up! Your processes and results will improve with each batch.

 

Couldn't tell you many specifics other than Wyeast's Dry Irish Stout and some chipotle powder in the secondary. I went a little heavy on that, admittedly, but deemed "Not bad" by most as I remember. Only half the batch carbonated, though.

 

My first brew came out pretty mediocre to bad.

I didn't have a big enough pot to do the all-grain mash in one container so I had to split it between two which made a huge mess and totally screwed up my strike water/sparge water ratios. Didn't have a hydrometer. Heated the mash at way to high of a temp, pitched yeast at way too high of a temp. Boil was the only part that went okay. I tried it at two weeks post bottling(american pale ale) and it was alright, yeasty, watery and low alcohol. Three weeks it was much better, but still at best maybe a 5/10. Second batch is bottle carbing now so we'll see.

 

I screwed up everything that I possibly could on my first brew day. Beer tasted great!

 

That's a major problem and I need to caution you about brewing while high!

Oops, I didn't see the word 'big.'

 

An amber lme kit. It didn't suck. But lots of mistakes were made and learning was learned.

 

My first beer was a flower power clone. It came out great, it wasn't until my second or third beer that I really made a clunker

 

My first was a standard brown ale. It was decent.