New to Homebrew

[Thaddeus]

Howdy all!
Happy Thanksgiving! Well....the Christmas season is upon us, and I cannot wait to brew my first batch! I have made some at the Shenandoah Brewery in Alexandria for my wedding rehearsal dinner last June, and did not get many complaints. The ones that I can remember is that one of my friends said he was no used to drinking beer that was not crystal-clear, and I think one of my wife's uncles said he did not feel well (after drinking about 8). Nevertheless, I want to go on to bigger and better things! I have to go bottle some "Christmas Ale" this Saturday. If there is anyone who wants a sample...please let me know. Rest assured, that this ale will keep for some time due to the fact that the alcohol measured at about 12% at the time of brewing. Looks like we may be able to use it for Christmas next year!

Anyway, I just wanted to say "Hello" and to make my presence known. I live in Woodbridge (Dale City) and would be happy to make contact with others in the neighborhood. My future plans are to get a 3-tier all-grain brewing system made once I have mastered the instant soup (aka: extract) method. In the meantime it will make a very nice project in the garage during the winter months. By the way....does anyone need some garden hose? A folding dog kennel? These and I am sure there are more things that my wife can part with to make more room in the garage. I would LOVE to get rid of the oversized riding lawnmower she has....but she will not hear of it. Nevertheless...I was to get rid of as much things as possible, or put them into storage. Where would be a good place? I am not from around here, so any suggestions would be great. So far...I have not seen any bargains.

Thank you for reading this post and look forward to all replies!

[mpilchuk]

Thaddeus,

How'd your your first batch go? Have you brewed yet?

I'm biting at the bit to get my next batch going, but I have to wait till I get my stitches out. You could say that my last batch had some cutting edge elements to it. I tripped walking up cement steps and didn't want to loose the beer and I guess I held on too long. in the end I lost the beer, the carboy and got a trip to the emergency room. The loss of the beer was a bad feeling, it was a double IPA and it smelled good. Lots of people at the emergency room said so. I was soaked with beer for many hours that night.

I was feeling bad about it then I realized that it wasn't my carboy I broke, it was Jay's :) (he's the admin here). My next beer will probably be Chinook pale ale. It's a beer that I have brewed many times, first in extract then all grain. The recipe is on northernbrewer.com. I may be using Marris otter barley malt instead of the Breiss two row that I have used in the past. I do have enough to do one more batch with the Bries, so I will have to wait until brew day to see which malt I will use.

This is a tough area for storage. It's all expensive. I'm up near Dulles Airport in Sterling and the storage, the last time I checked has gone through the roof.




Howdy all!
Happy Thanksgiving! Well....the Christmas season is upon us, and I cannot wait to brew my first batch! I have made some at the Shenandoah Brewery in Alexandria for my wedding rehearsal dinner last June, and did not get many complaints. The ones that I can remember is that one of my friends said he was no used to drinking beer that was not crystal-clear, and I think one of my wife's uncles said he did not feel well (after drinking about 8). Nevertheless, I want to go on to bigger and better things! I have to go bottle some "Christmas Ale" this Saturday. If there is anyone who wants a sample...please let me know. Rest assured, that this ale will keep for some time due to the fact that the alcohol measured at about 12% at the time of brewing. Looks like we may be able to use it for Christmas next year!

Anyway, I just wanted to say "Hello" and to make my presence known. I live in Woodbridge (Dale City) and would be happy to make contact with others in the neighborhood. My future plans are to get a 3-tier all-grain brewing system made once I have mastered the instant soup (aka: extract) method. In the meantime it will make a very nice project in the garage during the winter months. By the way....does anyone need some garden hose? A folding dog kennel? These and I am sure there are more things that my wife can part with to make more room in the garage. I would LOVE to get rid of the oversized riding lawnmower she has....but she will not hear of it. Nevertheless...I was to get rid of as much things as possible, or put them into storage. Where would be a good place? I am not from around here, so any suggestions would be great. So far...I have not seen any bargains.

Thank you for reading this post and look forward to all replies!

[Cory]

For my first 50# bag of grain after going all grain, i use Briess 2 row. My second bag was Marris Otter. I liked the MO much better than the Briess. The Briess worked well but i didn't like the flavor that it was giving to the beer. It stood out too much. The MO is much softer. I'm about out of the MO so my next 50# is some german pils. So far i've only used it in lagers. Pretty soon i'll be putting it in an ale to see what happens.

[mpilchuk]

Cory,
That's good to hear. I've heard good things about Marris Otter, but hearing it from someone who has used the same grain that I am used to is a real good recommendation. I just transfered into secondary an Octoberfest. I left it in primary longer than I wanted. I had intended to move it to secondary the night I had my little finger slicing accident. I checked the specific gravity and drained the beer thief into a glass and it had a good taste to it. I have made lager once before and it was a Budweiser clone which sucked (but then it would have probably been considered a successful clone :) ) This is my second lager. Good luck with your German Pils.