Ready to take the next step...

[Gigemags05]

I've brewed 4 batches. All of them different types of ales. All of them were from Extract kits, and they have all tasted great so far.

I have a lager with DME ready to brew next.

I feel like I have kind of hit a wall. What is the next step in brewing? Partial mash? Make my own recipe?

I am not really comfortable with reading the gravity and making adjustments off of the reading. I've read Dave Miller's book but still don't really get it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[jayavery]

hey what did you need help with exactly? the next step would be to not brew from a kit, and take your dme and your recipe and just make it. at the very end of your brew day simply take your gravity and then take it again when you're done fermenting and see how it turns out.

if you have anything specific you'd like to know, i can help.

if you're brewing with dry malt, i have a video tutorial for you here: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRqR9OcYcj0&list=UUzXVt8eSaMOurjhod8bb1KQ&feature=plcp]How to brew with Dry Malt Extract - Epic Beer Dude - YouTube[/ame]

 

[maffewl]

Not really sure what you are asking...

You can brew extract your entire life and still learn new things and constantly get better at it.

Maybe you are asking if you should move to all-grain? If so, yeah... go for it. I made the switch on batch number three and have never looked back.

Making your own recipes is awesome... just lurk for a bit until something hits you and you are like, perfect, I can't wait to do that.

I've gotten on a yeast harvesting kick here recently that feeds my desire to get home from work. Not to mention the endless DIY projects I love like building stir plates, controllers, mash tuns, etc...

 

[Gigemags05]

Sorry to be so vague. Basically, both of you hit it. I just want to expand my horizons a little bit.

As far as the gravity reading, I guess I just don't really get the point. Why check it? To know when fermentation is done?

I will watch the DME tutorial. Is it difficult to move to all grain brewing? I'd like to give that a look.

I am so new to this, I don't really know what questions to ask.

 

[badbrew]

Do you have the capability of brewing a lager? I don't atm.

 

[daksin]

Partial mash is a nice go-between for all-grain, but if you have a big boil kettle you can just as easily do All-grain via BIAB. It's the best! All the joy of all-grain with none of the investment. Depending on your bags and pots, you may be limited to average gravity beers, but you can always PM or extract your way to the barleywines if you want.

 

[maffewl]

Reading the gravity basically tells you how much fermentables, i.e. sugar, you had in the beginning, to how much of that actually fermented.

Since you've been extract brewing, taking the original gravity reading really isn't that important. Your original gravity, or in simple terms, the original amount of sugar in the wort, should be just what it's supposed to be since there really isn't any variable for you to tinker with other than adding or subtracting water. In other words, more water, less sugar ratio... and less water, more sugar ratio. However, taking more readings after adding the yeast and in the subsequent days will let you know the progress of fermentation, when the fermentation is complete, and when the beer is ready to be bottled/kegged.

When you move to all grain, gravity readings become much more important. I won't go into detail there, but suffice it to say that you will need to understand readings if you plan to move to all-grain.

Moving to all grain is extremely simple and I find it to be alot more fun. You have alot more control of the recipes you make and there are a ton of fun things to build. That's right in my wheelhouse, so it may not be for everybody. You can make some awesome beer with extract, don't believe that all-grain is going to make your ok beer turn stellar. It won't. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

 

[jbaysurfer]

The answer to your gravity measurment question: Exactly.

I think you should start with learning how to use and read your hydrometer. It's really easy, and you get to taste the wort from the hydro-jar after you're done!

Gravity=fermentables (starches) (oversimplification) and healthy fermentation equals alcohol content (another oversimplification). If you want to brew a beer that has a certain alcohol content, you have to know how much grain (DME/LME) to buy.

If you're even thinking of going all grain, getting your head around the recipe/gravity/abv relationship is important because you're factoring in another variable, which is how well you're converting your grain to fermentables.

Your kit probably came with a hydrometer and wine thief. Use the wine theif (it looks kinda like a turkey baster with no bulb on the end) to get a sample of your wort. Put that sample into the hydrometer jar (likely you'll be using the plastic cylinder the hydrometer came in), then when there's enough wort in the jar to float the hydrometer, stick it in there and spin it around. Read the gravity from the hydrometer where the liquid (the lowest part of it) meets the hydrometer, and there you have it. After a week or so of fermentation do it again. This will tell you how well fermentation has progressed. Most hydrometers will have an ABV scale on it that help you to determine the ABV%, or you can merely subtract your current gravity from your original gravity and multiply the answer by 131...or use countless free internet calculators.

Good lucky, sorry if I data dumped on you, but it was all just random stuff from my head.

 

[Gigemags05]

I have a small chest freezer that I bought a thermostat for so i can do a lager.

I enjoyed the tutorial on the DME. I basically follow all the same steps so it was good to see that I am doing it correctly for the most part.

What is BIAB?

 

[maffewl]

What is BIAB?

Brew in a Bag

 

[jayavery]

Sorry to be so vague. Basically, both of you hit it. I just want to expand my horizons a little bit.

As far as the gravity reading, I guess I just don't really get the point. Why check it? To know when fermentation is done?.

gravity readings are one of the most important things to take ..

1. with the start and final gravities you can tell EXACTLY what the abv % of your beer is
2. you will know whether or not it fully fermented
3. you can check at what stage the fermentation is at any given time by taking a gravity reading ie (is my fermentation stuck? can i bottle yet?) those can be determined by where your gravity is even when there is no airlock activity your beer may not be fully fermented yet and if you bottle .. you can create dangerous bottle bombs !

so yes, very important to take gravities

 

[ampsman]

I went into brewing with the attitude that I would knock out a couple of extract batches and move onto all-grain...like a boss.
Well I am about 4 months and about 10 batches in and I love extract brewing.
Will I go to all-grain eventually? For sure.
But you can still be creative and have alot of fun with extract, and most importantly you can make really good beer.

 

[badbrew]

I have a small chest freezer that I bought a thermostat for so i can do a lager.

I enjoyed the tutorial on the DME. I basically follow all the same steps so it was good to see that I am doing it correctly for the most part.

What is BIAB?

Get a thermostat or you will be too cold. I learned this the hard way.

Edit: duh. I can't read.:cross:

 

[Gigemags05]

I have a thermostat for the chest freezer so I should be good. It goes from 20-90 degrees or something like that. I do wonder if it still might get too cold with it being in the garage, but as of right now it is working great. I live in the Dallas area so it doesn't get too terribly cold.

I will work on using the hydrometer and understanding gravity readings before I move on to all grain or partial mash.

This hobby is extremely fun but can be overwhelming because there are so many variables.

 

[daksin]

This hobby is extremely fun but can be overwhelming because there are so many variables.

And acronyms. Sorry for not clarifying the BIAB.

BIAB, HERMS, RIMS, AG, PM, HLT, MLT, BK, OG, FG, SG, EKG, MO, CTZ, NB, AHS, BB, DME, LME, WLP, OMG, WTF, BBQ, FU

 

[Gigemags05]

I got nervous and moved my chest freezer to the man cave inside the house so it won't get too cold. Threw a deer hide on top of it and it looks like a nice corner table now, haha.

Anyways, I took gravity readings of my two beers that are bottle conditioning. One is right on, the other is a little bit high. The FG was supposed to be a 1.014 and I have a 1.024. I'm not sure what I did wrong here.

I did add 2 lbs of honey to the wort during the boil, so I am not sure how that effected the SG, as I didn't write it down when I brewed it. Oh well, the beer tastes great. I just don't know what the ABV is.

 

[H-ost]

This hobby is extremely fun but can be overwhelming because there are so many variables.

It is only as complicated as you want to make it. As someone else stated earlier, you can make extract batches for the rest of your life the same way you have been. Inversely, you can do something different every time you brew. Either way you can make AWESOME beer but of course the more technical you CHOOSE to make it the more precise and consistent your beers will be.

 

[gunner65]

I would also suggest BIAB do a youtube search there are tons of videos to watch and I know that I learn better that way.

 

[jayavery]

I went into brewing with the attitude that I would knock out a couple of extract batches and move onto all-grain...like a boss.
Well I am about 4 months and about 10 batches in and I love extract brewing.
Will I go to all-grain eventually? For sure.
But you can still be creative and have alot of fun with extract, and most importantly you can make really good beer.

a ton of award winning beer has come from extract brewing. there are actually all-extract micro breweries out there ...

and it's so much less time consuming than all grain .. so when you want a brew day to not be an ENTIRE DAY .. extract is great .. and like you said you can do amazing things with specialty grains and extract brewing