"New" to brewing

Glad we finally have a homebrew forum. I have brewed a few wines and I have a cider which is almost finished bottle conditioning but I am new to brewing beer. I just bottled my first batch today, a Kolsch made from a Brewer's Best kit I bought at a local brew supply store. Everything went pretty well and it tasted just fine so it should be great. Does anyone have any recommendations for the new brewer? Maybe something you wish someone had told you when you started? Can one of our more practiced members put up a FAQ?

Mind your sanitation. Other than that it really depends on how deep you want to go into the rabbit hole.

Some of those boxed kits can have some pretty old ingredients. If you find that the end product is a little off, try ordering from places like Northern Brewer or Austin HBS. Most of the kits they sell are made up with fresh extract, hops, grains and yeast.

If you only want to brew now and then, kits are fine, but they can be fairly expensive.

• Star-San is the bomb. Remember that infections are not a binary thing....lax sanitation will make your beer taste off, even if it's not a full blown infection.


• A counterflow chiller is awesome. Waiting sucks.


• All-grain is not that hard, and to me, way more fun/rewarding.


• When you go all-grain, invest in a high quality thermometer. I recommend the Thermapen. If you get a remote probe thermometer, don't dunk the probe in the mash. I thought you could do this, but it will ruin your thermometer. They can be made wort-proof, search HomeBrew Talk for details.


• Mash temp. Hit it.


• Don't brew a beer over 1.060 without using a yeast starter. Don't brew ANY beer without a yeast starter if you're using liquid. Use Mr. Malty to calculate your pitching rates.


• FERMENTATION TEMP. Watch that shit.


• Spend the money on BeerSmith or a similar program. It's the best 'bang for your buck' in brewing accessories.


• Take copious notes. Write down EVERYTHING. You won't think you'll need to at the time, but when your FG is too high, you'll be kicking yourself that you didn't write down the amount of yeast pitched, mash temps, etc.


• Stir the ever living fuck out of your mash. I picked up roughly 8 points on my OG by stirring for ten minutes instead of two. You don't need to stir during the mash.

I'll add more if I can think of any. These are the things I wish someone had shouted at me (with a megaphone) when I started brewing.

Thanks guys. I would eventually like to ditch the kits but I feel like they will help to get me familiarized with the basic process.

I think what they're saying is that you can still do the kits, but check where you get them from. For instance, you can look at AHS and they have a lot of beers you can make that they have on file. When you order the kit, in what level of dificulty you choose, they actaully go and make the kit for you as opposed to having kits premade and sitting around.
I can't look up beer sites at work, hell I'm lucky I got the nerds to unlock ar15.com, but I'm guessing this is what they're referring to.

Looking around doesn't cost anything and you might be surprised what you find!

Happy brewing!

I've used several of the kits from AHS.

I didn't start making my own recipes until after about a dozen brews.

FYI, if you are near Prescott the guy at Mile High Brewing Supplies makes his own kits with fresh ingredients.

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