First attempt at beer!!

[astebbi1]

Eh everyone, Ive been making wine for a while now but me and two of my friends (with 0 experience besides a lot of research) recently went in on some equipment to make a couple batches of brew.. I wanted to know what you guys thought of our supplies/process and get any info on something we can do that is wright/better..
Okok so here it goes, we have all the items needed,
Buckets, tubing, thermo/hydrometer, pots, grill to cook on,
As for ingredients we bought 5lb of dextrose, 2 cans of malt extract, and two types of hops (warrior and something beginning with a "c" I can't remember right now)
Now here's what we did, we made two 5gal batches this way and are hoping to make 2 more 5gals next week (we have all the supplies for it).
-brought 2 and 1/2gal to a boil on the grill's stove
-mixed in 4cups of sugar, dissolved, added the can of malt, dissolved
-threw in 1st round of hops and stirred every once in a while for 1hour
-added the finishing hops for about 15min stirred, strained into 5gal fermentor, topped off with water at appropriate temp
-checked SG, starting was something like %4.8avb, added sugar to bring it up to a solid 5 and pitched yeast
-lidded, airlocked, sitting in the garage now got bubbles every 5-7 seconds
So how'd we do?? Any tips/advice?? We're really just trying to make beer on the cheep so we were thinking of getting hopped extract next time to cut down a step and save some dough what do you think?? Any way to make it cheeper?? What's the best way to bottle on this low budget??
Thanks for reading everyone looking forward to some feedback, cheers
-Andrew

 

[Brew and Wine Supply]

Did you follow a recipie or just decided to throw some things together? As you described, in a nut shell, sounds like you did right. you will find out more when you drink it.
For making beer on the cheap ( not always the best tasting but cheap) you can go just with a hoped malt, water, sugar and yeast. I have some Priemier malt on hand ( the old Pabts blue ribbon malt, its been around since before prohibition) for $9.99 a can and will make 5 gallons. thats about as cheap as you are going to get. Not sure if I have it on the web site yet, so give me a call.

 

[Wade E]

Sounds like you have the basics down. I myself dont like the canned malt extract and finc I get a much better product with using grains. Im also not a big fan of hopped extracts and prefer using hops. Tge "C" is most likely Cascade.

 

[bob1]

Looks like someone made some beer. One thing I didnt see was water. Suggest a whole hose carbon filter. Attach to garden hose and have all the water you need.

 

[astebbi1]

Did you follow a recipie or just decided to throw some things together? As you described, in a nut shell, sounds like you did right. you will find out more when you drink it.
For making beer on the cheap ( not always the best tasting but cheap) you can go just with a hoped malt, water, sugar and yeast. I have some Priemier malt on hand ( the old Pabts blue ribbon malt, its been around since before prohibition) for $9.99 a can and will make 5 gallons. thats about as cheap as you are going to get. Not sure if I have it on the web site yet, so give me a call.

Thanks BW supply, we already ordered our next 10gal ingreadients but ill run it by my buddies and probably hit you up next time.. Do you have anything else thats prehoped?? I know they wont be too happy with Pabts (shunned that beer a while ago because of the flavor).. We weren't really following a recipie more like secondhand tips we got off of our homebrew supply guy and youtube, especially the guy "craigtube", he uses prehoped coopers a lot which we couldn't find.. If you have some of that we would deffinately be interested..

 

[astebbi1]

Sounds like you have the basics down. I myself dont like the canned malt extract and finc I get a much better product with using grains. Im also not a big fan of hopped extracts and prefer using hops. Tge "C" is most likely Cascade.

You are correct sir, Cascade was it hope it turns out well..

 

[astebbi1]

Looks like someone made some beer. One thing I didnt see was water. Suggest a whole hose carbon filter. Attach to garden hose and have all the water you need.

Yea we just added water from a garden hose, i think like 3gal (w/e it took to fill the rest) and it turned out to be the perfect temp* for both batches which im not sure is luck, or just always turns out that way..

 

[bob1]

That beer will be kind of light. I think that warrior might be to much for it. I like the cascade. Amarillo is good for something like that it is good for both bittering and finishing.

The filter on the hose is for chlorine. I dont know if it gets it out but it does say it gets rid of the smell.

 

[astebbi1]

That beer will be kind of light. I think that warrior might be to much for it. I like the cascade. Amarillo is good for something like that it is good for both bittering and finishing.

The filter on the hose is for chlorine. I dont know if it gets it out but it does say it gets rid of the smell.

Thanks for the advice bob, the HBS guy recomended warrior and cascade so thats what we went with.. He also said prehoped malt has sort of been fazed out, is that mostly true or is it still available some places??

 

[Brew and Wine Supply]

Thanks for the advice bob, the HBS guy recomended warrior and cascade so thats what we went with.. He also said prehoped malt has sort of been fazed out, is that mostly true or is it still available some places??

I have plenty, including Coopers. Could be your HBS is fazing it out.

 

[bob1]

You know I kind of skipped extract brewing so didnt pay to much attention to it. But I did notice that where I buy grain he does not carry it.


If I had a buddy to help me brew I sure would have built me a mash ton a long time ago.

I took some of Wades advice a year or 2 ago and got a carb rack set up and got rid of those horrible bottles.

 

[tchuklobrau]

Do you have a bottle capper yet? As far as bottling cheap, go to your local bar and see if you can buy empty pop top bottles(I started this way got 6 cases for the $of deposit per bottle) Sam adams bottles are great to save for this reason as well.
Gotta watch using a regular garden hose for getting your water they can leech clhoramin and other crap(they were not designed to be used for drinking water) into your beer which will make it taste bad in the end. I bought one of those white rv water hoses for my beew brewing.

Currious how much of each hops you used.

 

[astebbi1]

Do you have a bottle capper yet? As far as bottling cheap, go to your local bar and see if you can buy empty pop top bottles(I started this way got 6 cases for the $of deposit per bottle) Sam adams bottles are great to save for this reason as well.
Gotta watch using a regular garden hose for getting your water they can leech clhoramin and other crap(they were not designed to be used for drinking water) into your beer which will make it taste bad in the end. I bought one of those white rv water hoses for my beew brewing.

Currious how much of each hops you used.

Yea I'm borrowing a capper from a friend at the moment, nice to know people who are into brewing in my area, and now I just grab bottles for free from the tavern I work at.. The garden hose is all I have at the moment but we are looking for a cheap replacement as soon as we can get around to it.. I believe we used 2oz of cascade and 2oz of warrior hops and it came out really bitter and hoppy but still good and drinkable.. We've switched to hopped extract now hoping for a more evenly rounded taste, well know how that turns out in a couple of weeks..

 

[tchuklobrau]

Brewing software will help you make a more rounded beer and take alot of guess work outa things. There are tons of em out there. I have promash($9.99 i think) or go to our sister site homebrewtalk.com in the one forum(brewing software) there is a link for a good free one called brewtarget.