Prep for brew day

If you are new to home brewing then my first piece of advice to you would be that "proper preparation prevents piss poor performance" anything you can do before hand to save time on the big day will pay off.

I have just made my Yeast starter

In my kitchen I have an electric hob which in real life glows red but for some reason its blue/purple in this picture?? anyway my yeast starter was made from 500ml of cold water which is boiled in a conical flask. when the water is boiling I add 50g of dried malt extract (DME). watch out of boil over as it happens quickly when using a conical flask.

When the wort (un-fremented beer) is cold to room temp I add the yeast and put the flask on my home made stir plate and leave it to do its thing. if you want to know more about yeast starters try these videos youtube link

another thing I do to save time is to assemble as much of my brewery as possible the night before. I keep all my brewery packed away when I'm not using it as we live in a tiny flat (see my brewery) 

all that is left to do is pray to the parcel force gods that my ingredients arrive in good time tomorrow :-)