Rookie needing home brew help

Read How to Brew by John Palmer. It is a great idea to do the research before jumping in. It will save you a lot of time and money in the long run. If you have questions while reading feel free to post your questions.

 

howtobrew.com is a very good overview of the brewing process. There is a print version which is a little more up to date, but the website is free. It doesn't cover growing hops, but I am not sure that is all that complicated either - they do grow wild.

 

I agree with the recommendations to read Palmer's 'How to Brew' book (or the online version). It's very informative. I've learned a ton of stuff in these Homebrewing threads that normally would require reading between the lines of any book, so make it a regular reading habit by visiting this forum.

 

Palmer's How2Brew is a good starting point; however...likes any noob getting into any new activity...nothing beats a 1) guide/mentor and / or 2) hands-on experience.

1) See if there's a club in your area.
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/community/clubs/find-a-homebrew-club/

2) Pony-up < 80 USD for an ultra-basic...low-cost 'training-wheels' brewing system such as those marketed by Coopers or MrBeer to get a general idea what home-beering entails.

 

Get and read how to brew.

Search and read the many first timer, noob, rookie type threads on this forum. You'll find the advice similar in just about every thread.

Focus on fundamentals.

• fermentation temperature control (below 70F for ales, preferably more like 64F. if you live in the south or southwest, plan on getting a freezer with temperature controller, cuz eventually you're going to see that it's the onlly way to go)
• yeast pitching temperature control (same as above, but here you need a wort chiller, and if your tap water is in the high seventies like it is here much of the year, you'll need some sort of pre-chiller too).
• sanitation. get starsan and use it. don't fear the foam.
• write out a DETAILED Procedure based on your equipment and your recipe. see my early blogs for examples and feel free to use them (but obviously your equipment and recipes are different than mine, so you'll need to edit them big time). A simple wheat beer with only liquid extract and 2 oz of hops can easily have 20 steps. A moderately complex all grain recipe can easily have more than 60 steps.
• If you're really drunk on brewday you can be quite certain you'll fuck it up
• don't mess with your beer for any reason for at least two weeks. seriously. leave it the hell alone.
• full boils. get a pot big enough to boil about 7.5 gallons right off the bat. A five gallon pot won't cut it. A lot of us including me have turkey fryers, which supply sufficient heat and have pots big enough for a full boil. no, you can't also use the pot for frying turkeys. well you can, if you don't mind screwing up your beer and you have a wish to start a major fire sooner or later.
• KISS methodology and recipe formulation. If you're thinking "I think I'll start off with an imperial stout," then you are seriously misinformed about the realities of brewing, and you can expect to make a nice batch of drainpour ale on your first try.
• read lots of threads here, especially threads on formulation of recipes for things like IPA, pale ale, brown ale, wheat beer, hefeweizen, witbier etc.
• obtain and read how to brew

 

Besides How to Brew, I would also recommend reading Charlie Papazian's Complete Joy of Homebrewing. Also a great start, but whereas Palmer concentrates on numbers and science and math, Papazian is more of a 'feel' guy - not as much worried about brewing to style, as long as it comes out tasty.
His mantra is also one that every brewer should have hanging over their brew station: "relax, don't worry, have a homebrew."
THere's plenty of information out there, especially online, but those are the two big ones to get started. Later on you can expand to other sources.
Hops growing is another place where ther is a ton of info out there.
The long and short is, you should be in the right areas, latitude wise. Your profile doesn;t say where you're fro,. but hops do like a certain amount of sun, soil, and they like to freeze over the winter.
Choose a southerly-facing area, plant your rhizomes. Water regularly to start, then once they are up, not as much. Fertilizer also helps, at least the first year or so.
Have something that they can climb - string something up to 12 - 15 feet at a minimum.
Don't expect much, if anything, from them the first year - often you won't get any cones until the second year or more.

 

Yeah, what I would say is, get your attitude/enthusiasm from Papazian and all of your facts, recipes, and methods from Palmer (supplemented by forum advice, Brewing Classic Styles, etc.).

[Edited to add: if you are already enthusiastic and laid back, then you can of course skip the Papazian.]

 

Absolutely nothing wrong with CJOHB, I have it too and have read it as well. Definitely less focus on numbers but no less useful when it comes to making tasty beer.

I think how to brew gets quoted most often because it's the shortest to type.

 

Beside the online or print version of "How To Brew", how about just watching some youtube videos? I watched and read, watched and read until I was familiar enough with terms and procedures before I brewed my first batch, which by the way, didn't turn out so great in spite of my preparations. It's drinkable, but thats it.

Forget about formulating your own recipes to start. Just do some simple extract kits for some bottled beer you can enjoy until you have a repeatable process with no newbie screw-ups along the way.

Patience is hard: one piece of advice was to leave your beer alone for at least two weeks. Good advice, but hard to do, especially when you're starting out. Messing about with the beer is an invitation to have it get spoiled or get air into it which leads to my first batch - still drinkable but has a weird finishing flavor that tastes like a piece of wood.

Don't know how much money you have, but don't go for the cheapest starter kits. You might look around on Craigslist for guys who are looking to get out of the hobby and are dumping their equipment.

Save your beer bottles - don't buy them. You might even go to a bar and ask for some bombers.

 

Books are always a very helpful way to start but if you are anything like me, you need hands-on training. Pick yourself up a Brewer's Best kit. They will have all of the grains, malts, and hops necessary to make a brew. The varieties they offer seem endless and the packaging tells you the skill level required. Stick to the novice level brews at first. This will give you a great idea of what measurements of ingredients are necessary and what ingredients lead to certain flavors you might enjoy. You can use the experience gained from this to venture off and experiment with your own ideas and experiments. This is exactly how I started.

Just a little piece of extra advice. If you opt to go this route, do not do the Russian Imperial Stout first. When I made the Brewer's Best Russian Imperial Stout, it exploded overnight the first night of fermentation. With some quick-thinking I was able to save the brew but it is not an inconvenience you will want to deal with your first time brewing.