First time making beer, need some advice

[Jack_humber]

im planning to make my first homebrew beer, pilsner beer to be exact.
i bought 2 kilos of regular pilsner, hops, beer yeast, some raisin and grapes for flavor.
i was going to follow this recipe but i cannot understand a word hes sayin.

- do i have to wash the stuff? it looks dirty including the hops
- should i crush the pilsner?
- can i add other types of barley? and do i need to crush em as well?
- will the yeast in grapes mess up the ingredient "too much yeast" ?

 

[FunkedOut]

I can understand him. Interesting recipe.
He adds some sugar and uses the wild yeast on the grapes. No raisins.
Also, you missed some carared malt and some oat flakes.

Grains are 80% pilsner malt, 10% carared malt & 10% flaked oats.
Match the weight of the grains in grapes.
Match the weight of the oats in sugar.

He uses whole hops and doesn’t specify which kind.
Different hops will produce different levels of bittering.
He adds all of the hops at the beginning of a 60min boil.

Italian Grape Ale made it to the 2015 BJCP style guide.
They specify a range of 10-30 IBU with an ABV range of 4.8% - 10%.

 

[FunkedOut]

Forgot to answer your questions...

No need to wash. You’ll be boiling the wort.
Yes, crush any malt.
Add some caramel malt per the recipe. Carared is a 15-20L caramel made by Weyermann. Try to stay near that color if you’re aiming for that recipe.
The yeast on the grapes is a wildcard. Won’t be too much, just unpredictable.

BJCP indicates that either ale yeast or wine yeast is appropriate.
Either clean yeasts or ‘fruity’ yeast (English/Belgian).

He never says what hops or what grapes.

 

[Scooter68]

How About trying https://www.brewersfriend.com/

This is sorta, like, a WINE MAKING FORUM.

 

[sour_grapes]

How About trying https://www.brewersfriend.com/

This is sorta, like, a WINE MAKING FORUM.

To be fair, we do have a beer-making subforum here: https://www.winemakingtalk.com/forums/beer-making.52/ (Personally, I don't mind that you posted where you did....)

 

[Wolfhound]

I would go to homebrewtalk.com, it is a wealth of brewing knowledge.

 

[winojoe]

Being a home brewer, I have a few pieces of advice:
1. I always said that beer brewers make great winemakers because they understand the importance of sanitizing. Wine is more forgiving than beer when it comes to this. The malt is a real feast for bacteria, spores, etc. So, make sure everything is sanitized.

2. Make a yeast starter. My beer started coming out so much better than just "ok" after using a yeast starter. Do this a day or two before you brew. Perform a web search, or go to homebrewtalk.com, for more info

3. Chill your brew as quick as possible after the brewing is complete so as to pitch the yeast starter as soon as possible.

Germans use the term "high krausen" for when yeast are in full blown feasting mode. This lag from pitching to feasting can take as long as 48 hours depending on the yeast. So, during this lag phase, there are other little things that start eating the sugars. All the little micro-organisms love feeding on sugars and will create "off flavors" (some not so good) in your brew. So, the idea is to pitch the "high-krausen" yeast as soon as possible so it can get the sugars first.

I hope this helps you out.

Cheers!