What Extract kit

Jonco · Nov 6, 2024

Hi all, Jon - new here and fairly new to home brew.
I have been using the pinter and after a handful of their offerings moved over to 40 pint extract kits with great success.
That said I am yet to find the perfect kit! Can anyone recommend an extract kit that resembles my favourite pint proper job or maybe something like ghost ship, Oakham citra, darkstar hophead or something of the like.
Thanks in advance

soupdragon · Nov 6, 2024

Mangrove Jack used to do a Citra beer but for some reason the dropped it from the range. Dark Rock home brew have their own Citra kit, @GhostShip has done both as he's a fan of Oakham's Citra. If I remember correctly he liked the Dark Rock kit bit commented that it wasn't quite as good as the Mangrove Jack kit.
Can't help about the other two beers, sorry

Cheers Tom

GhostShip · Nov 7, 2024

Hi Jon - and welcome to the forum!

'The perfect kit'. Now there's the eternal question!

I can't help with a Proper Job double, but as Tom says above, I love Oakham Citra and have had good success with a couple of citra kits. Mangrove Jacks citra beer was fantastic. One of the best kits I've ever done, but it was a limited edition and for some reason, they dropped it from the range. It was so good I contacted MJ to tell them they needed to bring it back, but nothing so far. Festival have just brought out a tribute to Oakham Citra called Woodland Citra Session IPA, which I've had my eyes on. The Partridge Brothers reviewed it on YouTube just this week and it was a disaster. I'm thinking something went wrong with the brew, because I can't believe a company with such a good track record of extract kits could get it so badly wrong, but who knows? There's a thread on here which I started and 2 or 3 guys are brewing it at the moment, so I'd keep an eye on that thread and see what they make of it.

That really just leaves Dark Rock's Session Series Citra Pale Ale. I added a review of this one in the 'Reviews' section on here. It's very good, though maybe not quite as good as the MJ kit, but not far off. I've done a few of the Dark Rock kits and they've all been excellent - the only thing I would say is to use the Dark Rock Enhancer with them as it makes a huge difference to the final brew.

Good luck with your new hobby and make sure you post a review of anything you make - good or bad!

P.S. It may not be your thing, but Mangrove Jacks Mango Pale Ale is fantastic as is their Pink Grapefruit IPA. Reviews for both can be found on here.

Jonco · Nov 7, 2024

GhostShip said:
Hi Jon - and welcome to the forum!

'The perfect kit'. Now there's the eternal question!

I can't help with a Proper Job double, but as Tom says above, I love Oakham Citra and have had good success with a couple of citra kits. Mangrove Jacks citra beer was fantastic. One of the best kits I've ever done, but it was a limited edition and for some reason, they dropped it from the range. It was so good I contacted MJ to tell them they needed to bring it back, but nothing so far. Festival have just brought out a tribute to Oakham Citra called Woodland Citra Session IPA, which I've had my eyes on. The Partridge Brothers reviewed it on YouTube just this week and it was a disaster. I'm thinking something went wrong with the brew, because I can't believe a company with such a good track record of extract kits could get it so badly wrong, but who knows? There's a thread on here which I started and 2 or 3 guys are brewing it at the moment, so I'd keep an eye on that thread and see what they make of it.

That really just leaves Dark Rock's Session Series Citra Pale Ale. I added a review of this one in the 'Reviews' section on here. It's very good, though maybe not quite as good as the MJ kit, but not far off. I've done a few of the Dark Rock kits and they've all been excellent - the only thing I would say is to use the Dark Rock Enhancer with them as it makes a huge difference to the final brew.

Good luck with your new hobby and make sure you post a review of anything you make - good or bad!

P.S. It may not be your thing, but Mangrove Jacks Mango Pale Ale is fantastic as is their Pink Grapefruit IPA. Reviews for both can be found on here.

Thanks for this, mango psle ale sounds nice and I will have a look for that thread

Twostage · Nov 8, 2024

You could invent your own and use extract and hops, that way you could possibly get close to what you want. I'm an all grain brewer but I've recently made a stout like that.

I used to drink Oakham's citra (before I had brewed enough beer to be self sufficient), nice pint. I'm sure I could come up with a Citra pale ale extract recipe if you were willing to go one step more complicated than a kit ?

Twostage · Saturday at 7:30 PM

Twostage said:
You could invent your own and use extract and hops, that way you could possibly get close to what you want. I'm an all grain brewer but I've recently made a stout like that.

I used to drink Oakham's citra (before I had brewed enough beer to be self sufficient), nice pint. I'm sure I could come up with a Citra pale ale extract recipe if you were willing to go one step more complicated than a kit ?

Was the thumbs up a general thumbs up or do you want me to have a go at designing a recipe ?

Dark Arts · Sunday at 4:56 AM

Try something like coopers Australia pale ale and dry hop it with Amarillo citra etc etc or get a hop blend, I've found extract kits to be mostly on the basic/bland side of whatever they're supposed to be and something simple like dry hopping or using a mini mash can elevate it up a notch or 2, last1 I tweeked was a simply brown ale kit that i did mini mash and added black treacle and took it someplace close to old perculer.

Jonco · Sunday at 11:23 AM

Twostage said:
Was the thumbs up a general thumbs up or do you want me to have a go at designing a recipe ?

That would be great cheers I'll give it a go

Dark Arts · Sunday at 4:08 PM

Jonco have a look on the likes of MaltMiller as they do small batch All Grain kits, plus they have a recipe builder, Crossmyloof still have a few 4.5ltr kits left(you pay more for them but its free delivery) you don't need much extra kit to do AG

8ltr+ stock pop
Mesh bag(I started with aldl veg bag

50p)
Thermometer
And a bunch of blankets/towels to wrap pot in for 1hr whilst it mashes, or you can stand turning heat on n off to keep it at temp(I wrap n forget for the hour, only drops about 8° so is in the zone for most of the hour)

What kits have you currently got at the minute?, may be some suggestions could be made to pimp it up?

Jonco · Sunday at 6:39 PM

Dark Arts said:
Jonco have a look on the likes of MaltMiller as they do small batch All Grain kits, plus they have a recipe builder, Crossmyloof still have a few 4.5ltr kits left(you pay more for them but its free delivery) you don't need much extra kit to do AG

8ltr+ stock pop
Mesh bag(I started with aldl veg bag50p)
Thermometer
And a bunch of blankets/towels to wrap pot in for 1hr whilst it mashes, or you can stand turning heat on n off to keep it at temp(I wrap n forget for the hour, only drops about 8° so is in the zone for most of the hour)

What kits have you currently got at the minute?, may be some suggestions could be made to pimp it up?

Sounds quite straightforward may have to watch a few videos, nothing in at the moment so just compiling my shopping list

What Extract kit

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