I brewed today!

I had nothing and no idea. But the beer came out pretty drinkable

Yeah..I know that feeling! Wifey and the kid gave me an all grain from Mid West or Northern...lousy directions but thank you You Tube (props to Larry Beer N BBQ) and tons of other on line how to"s. It's funny how the lousy instructions run counter to commonly accepted practices or S O P's...I always think back to the "gently stir wort to cool it down and don't splash" line...I'm sure whoever wrote that was hyper over cold side oxidation but buddy...yeast needs oxygen to live and you just boiled all the O2 out of the wort! Ahhh Knowledge...you are a devisive mistress!

@jmcnamara ...what's that floating in bag? A bobber?

Oh yeah...I brewed yesterday too! First time on a Munich Cluster smash because I had a couple packets of YCH Cluster in the fridge getting long in the tooth...smelled great..it's also my first time to the dance with Omega's Lutra..I gotta snow globe going on in the cellar now!
 
Maris Otter smash wort coming to a boil. My sense of smell is not gone, just muted and only picks up certain things. Like the Citra hops just smell like sweet citrus blossom and peel, and this wort smells like crackers!

Also I'm hoping MO is not my favorite of the pale ale malts because I hate working with this stuff. I always get the worst dough balls only with MO

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Maris Otter smash wort coming to a boil. My sense of smell is not gone, just muted and only picks up certain things. Like the Citra hops just smell like sweet citrus blossom and peel, and this wort smells like crackers!

Also I'm hoping MO is not my favorite of the pale ale malts because I hate working with this stuff. I always get the worst dough balls only with MO

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Super excited for this! - Wish I could be there for the taste test! I need to use Citra hops sometime!
 
I def owe you some beer but I was gonna send you something German lol :)
I should send you something German! I have a semi-German Lager nearly ready to carbonate! Maybe once I get that carbonated I'll bottle and mail you one. It's called Victory for Vienna (a Vienna Lager with 5% Victory malt in the grain bill). :) - I'm pretty excited for it. I'm slowly dropping it to lagering temps.
 
My first brew was a small batch all grain kit :)
I had nothing and no idea. But the beer came out pretty drinkable
Ditto. I did a 1-gallon all-grain batch that made 10 bottles. Was quite nice, actually. And I have absolutely NO CLUE what the recipe was, LOL. My stepson gave me a starter kit for Xmas a few years ago, and that was how I learned what real beer was, and how much better it was than BMC brands. I learned pretty quick that it's almost as much trouble to brew a 1 gallon batch as it is a 5 gallon batch. The only advantage is that the 1 gallon batch isn't quite as big a 'waste' if you don't like the recipe. After 2, maybe 3 batches, he brought all his fermenting stuff over and I've been doing 5 gallon batches since. A few upgrades (SS Kettle, conical fermenter, better testing tools, etc.) and I'm pretty comfortable that I can be consistent with my brews. I make all my changes in small increments for lots of reasons. It keeps me from spending too much money. It lets me see/smell/taste the different effects of the changes better. And I learn more about the whole process. The biggest difference has been clarity since I switched to the conical and repitching the yeast on more batches.
 
Not a good brew day in the end. 5 points off on gravity. I was worried about my crush but went anyway. Sophie also helped measure and possibly bumped the scale, noticed her doing that on the dark grains (I measure them separately). I added extra invert syrup after noticing the low gravity. This will probably be absolute ass. Had this not been a beer with an OG of 1.038 I wouldn’t have cared but didn’t want low 3%
 
Not a good brew day in the end. 5 points off on gravity. I was worried about my crush but went anyway. Sophie also helped measure and possibly bumped the scale, noticed her doing that on the dark grains (I measure them separately). I added extra invert syrup after noticing the low gravity. This will probably be absolute ass. Had this not been a beer with an OG of 1.038 I wouldn’t have cared but didn’t want low 3%
Hard to like that one...it will be beer? Maybe it'll even be "good for you"...
 

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