I have all of the equipment and have read 'How to Brew'. Now I am trying to determine what I should brew first. Any recommendations?
My recommendation is an American Pale Ale, assuming you like to drink that style. Simple, and revealing of flaws. Others will probably recommend a porter/stout, because the roasty flavors will hide some flaws. So it might be a question of which is more important to you... making and learning from mistakes or having a first brew that you might be happy(er) with, but with hidden flaws.
I'm with vikeman, brew something that will show your flaws. My second beer was a wheat, and I learned a lot from that, my first beer was. Belgian tripel, didn't learn much from that outside of process. In the end pick something that has a simple grain bill, a simple hop schedule, and a simple fermentation.
The obvious question is: what do you like? I agree with Vikeman, do a pale ale. Or if you are not into hops, do a brown ale.
My standard answer: anything you like to drink that has a relatively low OG (below about 1.060). If you want to keep it super simple, I think an American wheat is a good way to go. It's a damn near foolproof style, and it's ready to drink right away, which is a big deal on that first brew where you can barely wait to taste it. But hey, if you really love porters, make it a porter, if you want an IPA make an IPA, etc. And then get working on the second brew.
Thank you for all of the recommendations. I like wheat beers and I like IPA's, so I will make one of those my first brew.
A hefeweisse is ******ed easy recipe, don't really need to worry about sediment or racking or secondary, not many hops, and the yeast does great at wide variety of temps. It also has one of the fastest brew-->bottle times.
This is what I did. From memory 6lbs wheat dry malt extract, 1 oz hallertua (or any noble hop) and a hefeweisen yeast, I used 2 packets of wyeast 3068. It was pretty good but I didn't stir the priming sugar in, so some bottles were nearly bombs, and some where pretty flat. If you like wheat beers, this is as simple as it gets and the results are pretty good.
Any basic recipe in Palmer's HtB would be an excellent entry point into the whirled of homeboy brewing.
My first was a brown. It was great. I got a big head. The second was my own invention. It was terrible. My third was an Irish Red and my fourth was an Oatmeal Stout, my first partial mash. These 4 brews were very instructive to me as a new brewer, for whatever that is worth.
