New year, new member

[DDoe]

Hi all
I'll start by saying I'm female, not sure if there are many of us on here.
I bagan winemaking about 40 years ago and did so for around 10 years. After getting married there were other things to occupy my spare time, decorating etc, so it fell by the wayside. Move forward a couple of years and we decide to have a go at making beer from kits. Results were ok but the arrival of our little bundle of joy meant no more making beer.
We now find ourselves with time on our hands and fancy another go at making beer. This time we don't want to use kits and have settled on using malt extract as our base malt. Our plans are to make 5L batches, we've got used to having a variety of bottled beers rather than a lot of one.
Should we take to making beer on a fairly regular basis the thought is we will use 5L mini-kegs rather than bottles, if we don't take to it it'll be back to buying the bottled stuff!

Cheers .

[f00b4r]

Welcome DDoe.
It’s a great idea to start off by making small batches, especially if you are extract brewing as it is a good balance between effort and results. Hopefully it lets you dial in and get comfortable with your process more easily.
Some beers are a lot more forgiving than others, it can help to start off with the simple ones or a known good recipe; any particular styles that you had in mind?
It can be handy to have an extra pair of hands too and it can be more fun if you brew together.
There are a number of female hobby (and professional) brewers around but they do seem to still be in the minority unfortunately, although historically it would have been the opposite (certainly in terms of “home brewers”).
Good luck with the first brew!

[Jim]

Welcome DDoe.

[DDoe]

Thanks for the welcome guys .

We bought a 5L all-grain kit a while back but when I looked at the instructions it went in the back of the cupboard . I'm thinking we'll use this as the basis for out first brew and convert to extract plus speciality grains. Off the top of my head I think it's a Continental Saison.

Whatever happens it'll be fun, I hope .