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Originally Posted by arctic_rogue
A couple of years ago, I got into making my own brew. I was only using kits so I didn't delve into recipes. I really should get into it again. Any advice on brewing with recipes as opposed to kits?
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Well, the hooked-on-homebrew continuum looks something like this:
- Beer kits
- Extract brew
- Extract with specialty grains
- Extract with partial mash
- All grain
I'd suggest you work your way up, as you need slightly more gear as you come down the scale. I'd say the biggest piece of advice is to find a good local brew store where you can source your supplies and
ask questions.
Read
www.howtobrew.com over and over. It's a great basic reference.
In short, most kits come pre-hopped. The next step is to hop your own using extract. After you've got a couple brews like that under your belt, you can start playing with the malt a little more, and that gets you on a very rewarding slippery slope.
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Originally Posted by AW
I didn't know that about the late LME addition. Everything I've read is that boiling it longer will carmelize it more, which is partly why I did it that way.
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I could be wrong, but as long as you get a hot break on it, your final beer should come out well.
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Originally Posted by AW
FHG, how have you found that hop tea technique? I'm interested in it. Do you steep in a bag? How hot and how long do you steep? Have you got good results in the past like this?
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The hop tea thing has worked out really well, especially for adding a bit more hop aroma without the hassle of wort loss that you'd get if you toss in a whack of hops on flameout. I've just been using a coffee press (clean!!), adding off-the-boil water (say 190ish F?), and steeping for 15 minutes or so. It gives nice aroma but also contributes to the flavour too, and it's a nice way to keep the mess down. More than anything, the heat extracts the flavours much better than a dry hop does, and the lack of time at heat prevents it from bittering.
