Post First Brew Thoughts...

So the first official home brew is in the basement, sitting in a fermentation bucket, bubbling away (about 50 hours after yeast was initially pitched). I go and check on the bucket about 3 times every hour, and absolutely LOVE the scent being emitted from the airlock.

I can't believe that I've still got weeks to wait!!!! I think that getting a second fermenting bucket and boiling a new batch is going to be the only thing that keeps me sane while waiting!

I'm thinking that I'll list off a few observation about the first "cook" - please let me know what you think. Also, I think that using another brew kit is a good idea for the 2nd batch, but after that, what is my next move in becoming an "intermediate" home brewer? I may be getting a bit ahead of myself here, but I'm anxious to research, improve, become more informed, and ultimately, have something to contribute to these boards instead of just leeching.

Here goes the observations:

I bought the Amber Ale kit from Best Brew and added an extract pound of malts and an extra 1.25 oz of citra hops. I only had a 16 quart pot and filled it up to about 2.5 gallon b/c I was nervous about overfilling once the ingredients had been added/ boil overs. There was really nothing even close to a boil over. The "Brew Crew" consisted of 4 guys and we kept a watchful eye/ stirring hand on the wort and we had to take it off the burner once, but that was about it. The 2.5 gallons of water had boiled off significantly at the end of the night. I wish I had gone with 3 gallons!

Should my next investment be a bigger boiling pot? What do you think about the water level/ boil off?

Next observation: cooling the wort is a serious pain in the ass. We had 2 huge bags of ice, filled the sink with ice and water, stirred constantly, added salt to the ice/ water, and it still took a good 20 min or so to get the wort down to about 80F (and I almost poured water from the faucet into the wort about half a dozen times!). It was getting late at this point, so we just went with the 80 degree wort..... We looked up a few sites detailing how to build a wort cooler... it's easy! We'll have one for the next brew...

Next: We poured the wort through a strainer into the fermentation bucket. I was initially a bit worried that the strainer we had wasn't fine enough to catch sediment, but it actually got clogged and had to be cleaned (i used a sanitized ladle to unclog) many times over. I cooked with hop pellets, DME, LME and steeped grains in a cloth sack to start things off. Is it normal to have so much sediment? If I had used fresh hops and put them in a straining cloth, would I have had less mess?

Hydrometer reading: My wort was pretty murky and bubbly. I ladled some of it into a graduated cylinder and attempted to read the hydrometer, but it was tough. Had to do whatever I could to get rid of the "head" and finally managed to get a reading of 1.058. Sound normal?

Finally: What's next? As previously mentioned, I'm thinking one more brew kit with a few simple additions, then we'd like to step it up. Go with more grains? Try dry hopping?

Thanks in advance for the feedback!