Home brewing kits ....

wherry needs a good 2 mths to be pucka, longer and it get's better too.

i visited my local brewshop in colchester last week and they have the new youngs american craft beer kits in stock at £23. 3 in the range, amber ale at 5.4%, APA at 5.6% and lovely hoppy IPA at 6.5%. the kits come with everything, 2 can's, bag of hops and priming sugar so you only need water and equipment. i have about 3 kits left to make up but i'm getting on these straight after. massive heavy kits too.

i have a question, is dry hopping kits a good thing to try with some of my kits, i have a wherry, muntons gold, thomas cooper IPA and may try it with the t.cooper or wherry.
 
f00b4r said:
Okay I am blaming all you lot for the potential damage to my wallet and liver...
After reading this, the all grain thread and some of the home brew forums it has persuaded me to grab a couple of the premium kits and see how they turn out, if they are good the missus has promised me a BrauMeister when my birthday comes around in a few months, so I can go all grain with minimum hassle.
Has anyone tried any of the Bock kits and do they use lager yeasts? I love Bock beer and thought I might try one alongside a couple of ales but don't want to have to lager it.
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Oh nice. The BrauMeister do look pretty foolproof, but takes some of the fun away from it to my mind. Not that I would say no to one if I was offered one that is. :p :D
My ex-headteacher apparently has one and has apparently brewed some great beers with it.

silent said:
i visited my local brewshop in colchester last week and they have the new youngs american craft beer kits in stock at £23. 3 in the range, amber ale at 5.4%, APA at 5.6% and lovely hoppy IPA at 6.5%. the kits come with everything, 2 can's, bag of hops and priming sugar so you only need water and equipment. i have about 3 kits left to make up but i'm getting on these straight after. massive heavy kits too.
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Put this America IPA kit in the fermenter last night. The hopped malt extract comes in a mylar foil bag, and so is harder to get all the malt out of than a can. It included 1kg(ish) of brewing sugar to raise the OG, along with another bag of priming sugar. It also includes 100g of pellets to dry hop. Never used pellets like this, and we don't have a brewing fridge to crash cool it for them to drop out, so we'll see how it turns out. Oh, and where most beer kits include 7g of dried yeast, this included 15g, maybe because it's a 6.5% beer.
 
seabiscuit said:
Oh nice. The BrauMeister do look pretty foolproof, but takes some of the fun away from it to my mind. Not that I would say no to one if I was offered one that is. :p :D
My ex-headteacher apparently has one and has apparently brewed some great beers with it.



Put this America IPA kit in the fermenter last night. The hopped malt extract comes in a mylar foil bag, and so is harder to get all the malt out of than a can. It included 1kg(ish) of brewing sugar to raise the OG, along with another bag of priming sugar. It also includes 100g of pellets to dry hop. Never used pellets like this, and we don't have a brewing fridge to crash cool it for them to drop out, so we'll see how it turns out. Oh, and where most beer kits include 7g of dried yeast, this included 15g, maybe because it's a 6.5% beer.
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It is a combination of compactness, time saving (young child), being able to concentrate on the recipes and just love of cool gadgets that persuaded me in the end :D
I will be trying the kits first though.

I am surprised that no one has tried the Bock beer kits, although i guess it was only having a German wife that made me discover them and the black lagers (didn't know they existed before and the Stella black or whatever it was they had here is not the same!) - if you like good ales i would suggest trying a bottle if you come across one (although in Germany some are only seasonal beers). Think i will have to shoot the brew shop an email to see what the procedure is for brewing the kit versions.
 
A big spoon or paddle will help you mix the malt extract with the water, and will help airate the wort for the yeast to multiply. You'll want something to syphon the ver into the barrel or bottles. If you use glass bottles you'll probably need something to put caps on them, but basic cappers start from £10. Finally some cleaning chemicals to sanitise everything. We use VWP and Starsan, but there are others too.
This is the kit we started with...
https://www.brewuk.co.uk/store/featured/complete-woodfordes-starter-equipment-set.html
 
Well bottled the first one, another two are ready and the final one is still bubbling away.

I didn't realize I had two different size bottles. So going to have to decant the small bottle into a big one and top up. Otherwise it'll likely have to much priming honey.






At the moment, very disappointing. Like alcoholic water with a hint of something. Drinkable. But no sense of honey.

That's 900g so second weakest.
 
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Well drunk the first bottle last weekend, and it was a very nice starting point. I wouldn't call it mead. It was like honey champagne. Light and refreshing. Just think sparkling wine but hint of honey. Would like a slightly more honey taste.
The stronger ones, should be more like traditional mead. But very impressed by the first result, not what I was thinking it would be like.
 
Marvt74 said:
Sounds good. I've just started drinking the Evil Eye Double IPA kit i mentioned above. It tastes very good but not quite how i would've expected it to.

Its a lot lighter and fruitier than i'd expect a double IPA to be so not sure if i've made a mess of it at some stage but given its summer its actually a perfect drink for a warm summers day!
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Well this turned into a nightmare. The first bottle was fairly decent but from there the bottles have got a lot more carbonated and have developed an apply cider taste which gets worse by the day to the point its gone from drinkable to undrinkable.

My initial thought is due to using castor sugar for the secondary fermentation in the bottle which had been sat in a cupboard for probably over a year rather than using fresh stuff.

Could anyone confirm my suspicions so i can make sure i don't make the same mistake again?

I've also seen carbonation tablets, are these a better option?
 
I doubt it will be sugar.
Different sugar does change tastes, but that doesn't sound like the issue.

If it's getting more and more carbonated, it means there's still sugar fermenting, so your first bottle would havw had unfermented sugar in it, meaning it's slightly sweeter. If you feel it's to carbonated you need to reduce the priming sugar.

As to cider like taste, are the bottles in direct sun light? Sounds like it's going off, as it's carbonated then they must be air tight, which kind of leaves UV damage.
 
No. It's been stored in a cupboard under the stairs right from day one. I just can't understand why it's getting worse.

I did my priming by dissolving sugar in water and using a pipet. I'm going to have another bash at the same beer and see what the outcome is.

Think that's why I like home brew. Even if it tastes crap it's only £20 to try again!
 
I think it is likely that you got an infection that is producing off flavours. The old sugar may be to blame here. I would advise batch priming and also boiling the sugar in water before adding it. How was your general sanitation and the like?
 
I used steralising stuff in the fermenter and left that for a bit before rinsing well. Poured the beer mix in and added water and then put it under the stairs.

Left it fermenting for around 3 weeks. Then on the day of bottling i filled the bath and put all the bottles in with steralising powder for around half an hour. Then drained the water and rinsed the bottles (filled half with water, swirled it round then poured it out. Then filled up fill before shaking and pouring the water away)

Then disolved sugar in water and used a filling tube (thing with a spring valve) to fill each bottle from the tap in the fermenter and had my wife put a pipet worth of the sugar mix per bottle.

When they were all full (using 500ml swing top bottles), i sealed them all up and stored them back under the stairs. The first one was opened around a week after and it's now probably been 6 weeks since bottling.

Let me know if theres any steps i could improve on :)

EDIT: I did consider batch priming but i only have one fermenter and don't really have room to store another.
 
Just got my Christmas Ale kit from BrewFerm off and running. Strange not adding sugar, but its bubbling away. Just worried its been to hot recently for the yeast, its kept in a ground floor basement, but ventilation is very poor. No space for it in the apartment, temperature is not much better either!

Also broke my glass thermometer, so went for a cheap-o digital one instead. Found out my hydrometer was meant for wine and spirits so got it replaced. Also learnt that the 750ml bottles take 29mm caps, not 26mm. Would explain why they were so hard to put on and didn't stay put! Lots of lessons so far, makes me feel the need to reach for a pint...
 
Sounds like that might be the case then. We've also made 2 batches of wine (neither has been great although it's only been aged for 2 months) Although my dad has a habit of not following instructions so i was hoping that the above beer done on my own would turn out better.

I'm wondering if i've not cleaned/rinsed things thoroughly and relied too much on just sterlising it.

I've noticed theres Sulphate and Chlorine based powders. Do you have a preference?
 
Personally I use Starsan. The bottle lasts forever (I'm about half way through and we've made at least 15 large (60 litre) batches of beer with it) and you don't have to rinse the bottles/equipment so it's much less hassle.
 
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