Homebrewing advice wanted

Thanks for the tips guys! NSFU- I picked that book up last week and totally dig it. The author keeps it fun. Much better than some of the other boring technical stuff I've read. Thanks for the tips f1. We will have to chat and fish sometime.
 I racked batch 1 to a secondary yesterday and I am already thinking of what to try next. I'm thinking red ale.

rethink to oatmeal stout. 
As long as just 1 bottle is labeled 'Tote' I'm good. Let me clarify. One bottle from your first batch of beer. 

rethink to oatmeal stout. 
As long as just 1 bottle is labeled 'Tote' I'm good. Let me clarify. One bottle from your first batch of beer. 

 When I inherited my kit from a neighbor, I promised him the first bottle from the first batch and he kindly replied, " I'll take the first bottle from the 2nd batch" 

looking good so far!   All I can say esp about the sanitizing is .. what they said!  I always try to even dip my hands in the spare sanitizer bucket any time I handle things after the boil as well.   I keg everything now so at least I get to skip the whole bottling process and if I want to take some beer with me I have 3 or 4 of those glass growlers. (from russian river brewing.. pliny! )   

On a side note.. anyone homebrewing notice the mats have gone WAY up in price?   My current batch is a nice hoppy IPA and I decided to use a partial mash kit, mainly because I wanted easy and its my first batch this year.     The 5 gallon kit was frigging $70 bucks...  pretty much about double since the last time I  used a kit.     Next batch I'm going back to all grain and buying everything separately..  hopefully that brings the cost down.    For the price of that kit I could have just bought 3 cases of lagunitas..  would be minus the fun of course.. 

I haven't brewed in a while.  With the ingredients getting so pricey and so many really good beers hitting the market, I just haven't been motivated.  I love IPAs and used to find it necessary to brew my own to get the kind of beer I wanted to drink.  Not the case anymore.  Ninkasi's Total Domination is my current favorite but both Lagunitas IPA and Sierra Nevada's Torpedo IPAs are really good too.  The craft breweries just keep getting better and better.  Ninkasi has been very generous to the NWKA group, donating kegs for their event as well as at Shelter Cove.  Costco in Danville has a four pack of assorted Ninkasi Brews.  All four are outstanding.

Martin

It seems like ingredients are going up in price.  I try to buy all of my hops and malts in bulk now.  My only advice would be the same as everyone else said.  Keep it simple with sanitation being the key to good beer.  A great website with good info is homebrewtalk.com and all of the podcasts that the brewing network put out are good to listen to.  Like Fureyous said one more key is not drinking too much while you are brewing.  I couldn't tell you how many ingredients I have forgotten to add because I was too busy talking with friends and drinking beer.  I start my all grain brews at 7am so that it is definitely too early to drink while brewing.  One other thing to consider is the water that you brew with.  If your water supply has chloramine in it you might be better off using store bought water.  I use all reverse osmosis water and add back the minerals I want.  The beers seem to taste a lot better now.  Good luck and if you ever want to get together and brew beer or just enjoy tasting some beer let me know.
Robert

  Heya,,   just found this  posting.   HOW could I have missed it before ????  BEER    My second favorite topic  Not that I drink thaaaaat   much. 
  Years ago I started Fermentap   www.fermentap.com.  The Valve kit , Wort Spray Aerator, SiphonTap, Carboytap, were all my inventions. Now owned by  More Beer in Walnut Creek.     I took the beer judge certification program  (  BJCP ) which opened doors to many a homebrew tastings  at various county fairs in the past.  So with credentials laid out,  I will now divulge one last ingredient to the receipe  for  making great beer.   I see there  has been a lot of really good advice offered already.   Sanitation,  Aeration ,   removal of chlorine  ,etc all critical ingredients.
     In addition to all those things, controlling the temperature of the fermentation  is critical.  Keep it consistent !  That is,  don't let there be temp swings.   A steady consistent temperature  is far better than  letting it go from warm in the day time, to cold at night.  a 5 degree swing can really contribute "off flavors" .   It will be good, but,,, that can make the difference from great.
  I like to ferment ales at the lower end when possible.  A cold concrete basement is far better than in a closet or ,, worse , the garage.  It's that "flywheel " effect that maintains a steady ferment-temperature.
    One other thing I notice is the large amount of headspace in your carboy.  It looks like a secondary stage fermentation.   Just be careful about too much headspace  as that  can open you up to dangers of oxidation.
Best to go with a carboy that's sized to the batch.
      We will gladly help you master your skills,  just  bring as many bottles as possible to the PIF event for evaluation.   
    Prost !

A great place to get supplies and ingredients is Austin Homebrew. They have everything from all grain to extract kits plus commercial beer kits. One of my favorites to date is the AHS Double Chocolate Stout (13D).
Here is their link-
http://www.austinhomebrew.com/

  Heya,,   just found this  posting.   HOW could I have missed it before ????  BEER    My second favorite topic  Not that I drink thaaaaat   much. 
  Years ago I started Fermentap   www.fermentap.com.  The Valve kit , Wort Spray Aerator, SiphonTap, Carboytap, were all my inventions. Now owned by  More Beer in Walnut Creek.     I took the beer judge certification program  (  BJCP ) which opened doors to many a homebrew tastings  at various county fairs in the past.  So with credentials laid out,  I will now divulge one last ingredient to the receipe  for  making great beer.   I see there  has been a lot of really good advice offered already.   Sanitation,  Aeration ,   removal of chlorine  ,etc all critical ingredients.
     In addition to all those things, controlling the temperature of the fermentation  is critical.  Keep it consistent !  That is,  don't let there be temp swings.   A steady consistent temperature  is far better than  letting it go from warm in the day time, to cold at night.  a 5 degree swing can really contribute "off flavors" .   It will be good, but,,, that can make the difference from great.
  I like to ferment ales at the lower end when possible.  A cold concrete basement is far better than in a closet or ,, worse , the garage.  It's that "flywheel " effect that maintains a steady ferment-temperature.
    One other thing I notice is the large amount of headspace in your carboy.  It looks like a secondary stage fermentation.   Just be careful about too much headspace  as that  can open you up to dangers of oxidation.
Best to go with a carboy that's sized to the batch.
      We will gladly help you master your skills,  just  bring as many bottles as possible to the PIF event for evaluation.   
    Prost !

Thanks for that! For sure too much head space. I didn't realize just how much evaporation a 1 hour boil would incur. The pic was about an hour after pitching into a 6.5 primary. Fermentation went ape sh*t a day later, and the instructions said to top off at secondary in a 5 gal. That's what I did, but I'm second guessing that now. Whatever...it's my first brew, I'll drink it regardless.  I'm having fun with it do far. Thanks again for your help!

      You can add water back into it after the boil.      I do that often , it helps  to shorten the cooling time and increases the net amount of beer.   Doing that will also dilute the specific gravity level.. so watch out that you don't  end up with too light of a beer.
    You're doing fine !   hang in there and keep at it.  Each time you will learn what works best for you.   Just keep in mind the advice given, and be sure to bring  at least three  bottles of beer for evaluation purposes.

        Just keep in mind the advice given, and be sure to bring  at least three  bottles of beer for evaluation purposes.

Absolutely! Say, does it make more sense when doing a full 5 gal boil to start with 6 gal or so, to minimize the top off amount?

        Just keep in mind the advice given, and be sure to bring  at least three  bottles of beer for evaluation purposes.

Absolutely! Say, does it make more sense when doing a full 5 gal boil to start with 6 gal or so, to minimize the top off amount?

The easiest way to make sure you hit your final target volume is to know what your boil-off rate is for your particular brew kettle. Here's how you do it:
1. Put 6.5 gallons of room temperature water in your boil kettle.
2. Bring the water to a boil and boil for one hour.
3. Cool the water back to room temperature. (the volume will change by a quart or more from 212F back to room temp)
4. Measure how much water you have left*. The difference between what you started with and what you ended with is your boil-off rate in gal/hour. (*You should also subtract anything you can't drain from your boil kettle. For example, my boil kettle will leave 1/2 quart (.125 gallons) of liquid below my drain valve so I add an additional 1/2 quart to my boil off amount to account for the 1/2 quart of wort that won't make it to my carboy.)

In my case, I have a Blichman 10 gallon brew kettle. My calculated boil off rate is 1.6 gal/hour. My kettle also leaves 1/2 quart below the drain valve. So, if I am doing a 60 minute boil, and I want 5.25 gallons to go to my carboy at the end, then preboil I need to start with 6.975 gallons (5.25 gallons final volume + 1.6 gallons boil off + .125 gallons remaining). I usually start with 7 gallons to make it simple. 

If you go through this exercise you will know exactly what your starting volume needs to be so you end up with the right amount of wort at the end of your boil. For extract brewing this isn't quite as important since you can always top off to get the correct volume into the carboy, which also ensures you have the correct SG when you pitch your yeast. However, this exercise is good practice for when you move to all-grain brewing, since you'll need to know your boil-off rate so that you can drain the right amount of wort from your grains.

Right On!  Great advice so far.  Try keeping a 'log' book of your batches.  It will come in handy to have real numbers when you try to tweak or recreate a beer two years down the road.

Awesome! Now I can go boil something while I'm waiting for my next Extract kit to show up. Thanks!

  Another thing to consider,  if you are trying to achieve a higher gravity beer ( stout )  don't add too much water.    When you get near the end of the boil, It doesn't hurt to pull off enough to measure the specific gravity reading ( OG )   If it's higher than your target level,,, add some water to bring it down.    Just be sure to cool the sample down before taking a measurement.  After measuring, pour it back into the hot wort.
    Not rocket science, it just takes gaining familiarity.