Scare

Two days after racking to the secondary I took a look at the carboy and the beer was MUCH darker than it had been in the primary. I don't know why. However, I removed the airlock and took a big whiff and it smelled good so I think everything is okay. Any idea why the color would darken at this stage?

Racking to the Secondary

Overall, this went well but will go great next time with a few tips. Biggest tip is not to do this in the kitchen where the counter tops are 33 inches high. Bathroom would be better. Even better would be the kitchen, but with the secondary fermenter on a milk crate. When you go to use that auto-siphon, you need the primary and secondary to be pretty close.

I filled up the bottling bucket with 5 gals of water and star san, then siphoned it into the 5-gal. I needed about another gallon of water to bring it to the next though. Sanitizing in the bucket were the: bung, new lock, siphoning tube, auto-siphon.

Also, pouring sanitizer water from the 5gal can be messy going into the sink. Try pouring back into the bucket. Then you can use that water to fill up the primary when you need to clean it.

Note: I tried to fit the siphon tube onto the bottling bucket spigot and it would not fit. I might need a different size for that or stretch it somehow.

Well done video here on racking to a secondary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG6kdJQGBkM

Primary Fermentation

At 26 hours we were bubbling about 1 bubble/second. Day 2, still bubbling well. Temp of the fermenter was up around 72-74 due to the endothermic reaction. I could not keep it cool in the closet. Day 3 it started to slow down with bubbling every 7 seconds. A few hours later on day 3 it was 1 every 14 seconds. Day 4, 1 per minute. Day 6, 1 per 1:24.  Did not check again until day 10 and it was over 2 minutes, maybe 3 I stopped timing it at 2 minutes.

Brew Day Step by Step

Here are my notes "pre first brew day." These will help me remember all the steps and the order of execution. I do not want any mistakes.

1. Add 5 gallons of water to the brew pot, add to the stove, and turn to high. Put on the lid.
2. To a stockpot, add some water and warm over medium heat. This is what I will use for warming the LME and for sterilizing additional water I may need to bring my fermentation volume to exactly 5 gallons.
3. Add specialty grains to the grain bag. Shake for smaller bits to fall out of the bag. Tie a knot in the top. Soak them in the brew kettle water bobbing it up and down to fully soak the grains. Tie the bag to the handle of the kettle. Keep the lid on. Start a timer and add thermometer. Grains come out at 20 min or 170 whichever comes first.
4. Start sanitation. Fill a 5 gallon bucket with water and 1 oz of starsan. Add the beer thief pieces, funnel, yeast pack, auto siphon, siphon tubing, scissors, bung, blow off hose, thermometer, hydrometer container, and bucket lid.
5. Pull out grains, let them drain a minute, don't squeeze the sack, and discard the grains. Put the lid back on and let it come to a boil.
6. At boil, remove the pot from the stove and pour in the LME stirring constantly. Then pour in the DME all at once stirring constantly. When well disolved, return the pot to the stove and get it boiling again. WATCH AND STIR to prevent boilovers.
7. When it returns to boil, and first hop edition and start a 60 minute timer. Watch for boilover. You may have to turn down the heat to MED because it will boil very fast and bubble and splash. Then bring the heat back up after it calms down to something less than high. 8 was working for me.
8. I won't mention the additions of hops since the recipes are going to vary, but assume you are adding hops at the times indicated on your recipe for the rest of the boil.
9. Turn up the heat on the stockpot to boil that water (sterilize it) and then remove it from the heat to let it cool down to room temp. Save this to add to the carboy to reach full 5 gallons for fermentation later.
10. At 5 min, add wort chiller to sterilize it. Submerge it good.
11. Attach the adaptor to the sink faucet.
12. At 0, turn off the stove and move the pot to a cooler surface. Hook up the chiller to the faucet and turn on the cold water. You want this chilled to 65 degrees in less than 30 minutes if possible.
13. During the cooling, sanitize the carboy by racking the sanitizer out of the bucket and into the carboy. Mark the carboy with electrical tape so that you know what 5 gallons is. Add enough additional water to bring the volume of water to the rim of the carboy.
14. Keep all the other sanitized equipment in the bucket, put on the lid.
15. Add water and some starsan to the blowoff container.
16. When wort is chilled, dump sanitizer from carboy.
17. Rack from kettle to carboy. Do not fear the foam. Aeration at this stage is okay. Add the remaining boiled and cooled water from the stockpot to the carboy to get the volume to 5 gallons.
18. Add the bung and swish the contents for a few minutes to aerate. Remove bung, cut top of yeast packet with scissors, pour yeast into carboy. 
19. Add blow off hose. Insert blow off hose end into blow off container full of water and sanitizer.
20. Place carboy somewhere dark and cool. Check your recipe for the correct temperature. Ales are about 60-72. My closet is right at 72 unfortunately.
21. Leave it here until primary fermentation is complete or leave it here for the primary and secondary.

Preparation

Research:

First, I bought Palmer's How to Brew from Amazon.com and read it several times. Great source. I also watch many youtube videos on all stages of the brewing process and ready many forums on the brewing topics. After all the reading and videos, I felt I was very well educated on all steps.

Brewing Supplies (Brew Kit):

I also researched starter kits on many websites and at my local home brew shop, Hop City. I settled on the NorthernBrewer.com Deluxe kit based on completeness of materials and price. It was the best bang for the buck and included primary and secondary glass carboy fermenters. The only additional items I needed were: Boiling Kettle (I bought a 7.5 gallon from Hop City), a wort chiller (which isn't necessary, but is really helpful and I plan on brewing for a long time), a glass carboy handle, and a faucet converter (so I can attach my kitchen sink faucet to my wort chiller.) I ordered the kit on Sunday and it was delivered on Friday. NorthernBrewer is in MN.

Bottles:

Buying brown bottles in a case is an option for $12.99 per case of 24 plus shipping, but I opted to dive into some Recycling containers and pull out what I needed. Luckily, I live in a condo building that has a bar on the first floor and all their bottle recycling containers are in the corner of our parking lot. With this huge selection, I can choose just the brown bottles that have no raised markings and have easy to remove labels. I pulled many varieties and soaked them in hot water and baking soda for 30 minutes. I found some brands that slipped right off and others that were more stubborn. Armed with this knowledge, I am only going to pull those brands from the bins. For Atlantans, the local SweetWater and Terrapin bottles had labels that were easiest to remove.

Beer Ingredients (Extract Kits):

As a noob, I have opted for extract brewing to start off as opposed to all-grain. It is supposedly easier although all-grain offers more control of flavors. With a 7.5 gallon stainless brew pot, I have the option for all-grain in the future if I want to try it. I bought two kits from NorthernBrewer called Chinook IPA and Extra Pale Ale. The former has all Chinook hops for Bittering, aroma, and dry-hopping as well as specialty grains for steeping. The latter is all Cascade with speciality grains as well. Each kit is complete with the grain steeping bag, yeast, DME, LME, hops and priming sugar. The hops are individually bagged for each stage (example: 1 oz for bittering, 1 oz for aroma, 1 oz for dry hopping.)