Adding to homebrew kits

[advisabledata]

ahh ok so I might try one once I get a bit more knowledge about it

 

[keirtristan]

I started early this year with pure kits, one stout, and AAA and an IPA. Immediately after brewed a 10% ginger beer.

But then I have done a few things, got two tins of amber extract and a bag of crystal malt. Steeped the crystal and then boiled the wort with a mix of citra and Mosaic. Mixed it all together and then dry hopped with more citra and Mosaic. That turned out awesome.

I now have an IPA kit that had crystal and wheat malt added with Pilgrim hops and a bunged in an extra amber extract tin. Then dry hopped with the bag from the kit and a shed load of mosaic and Citra. That may come out overly hopped. Who knows. Now bottled and will be ready for tasting this weekend, maybe.

Lastly, I did did something similar to the above, and added smoked malt to the steeped grains and again boiled with some added Pilgrim hops. No extra malt extract. I'm hoping this will create a smoked pale.

To summarise though, it's easy to play. Don't be scared, just give it all a go.

 

[cornyandy]

I agree with the above post, it isn't your instincts that are wrong you just need to pull back on the kit, there's not a lot of point messing with an already expensive kit. I would recommend you have a look at this book for ideas of how to improve kits

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1852491124/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

This book contains much more than you need to know and should give you an idea of what to do. I would always start with a "basic" 3 kilo kit or a 1.7 kilo kit with 1.5 kilo of added malt then play with other grains and hops. This link to one of my experiments should give you an idea of how I do things. Please do note I am instinctive rather than scientific in my brewing so I can't give you IBU's or degrees lovibond or even sometimes SG's but I rarely end up with anything undrinkable that has a recipe issue

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=54060

 

[advisabledata]

you see I don't really know what any of that means beside SG

 

[cornyandy]

My point is that you actually don't need to. There are a lot of very clever people on here that can work out a brew to the Nth degree and do and I really tip my hat to them. The work out what colour they want the beer to be, so work out the colour from the given malts, then how bitter they want it (expressed in IBU's International Bittering Units) and devise their grain bill and hop schedule from this data. I look at a recipe and think okay I could tweak that, then after the tweak I teak again. As long as I don't make a poor beer I am happy. Honestly the only times I use a hydrometer are to check the gravity of the runnings from the mash tun and if I have a beer I am really not sure whether it has finished (an example would be the Four Fingered Jack which seemed to keep a Kraussen for a huge length of time.)

 

[Covrich]

The Youngs IPA kit already comes with dry hopping so you will be doing that for the first time. I think one of the reasons why the Young's kits are pretty good for kits is because they come with 100g of dry hop so you get a huge whack of fresh hop blast.

If you want to take a basic kit and pimp it up what you could go for is something a little bland on its own (like a coopers canadian blonde) or something which has a good baseline such as coopers english bitter. and build around that. You could steep some grain add some DME and do a 10-15 min boil with some hops which should give you some aroma/ flavour. Then swap out the yeast from the kit for a better one.

You could also try an extract using plain extract and steeping some grains in and doing a 1 hour boil.. It is a good way of introducing you to the boiling process without having to worry about mashing efficiency or needing more equipment for bigger volumes.. That said if you're like me you'll do one of them and then go down the path of Grains but that's the dark side in me talking

 

[clibit]

I agree with those who are recommending not using standard beer kits, and getting plain extract and hops instead. You can buy kits that include plain extract and hops and steeping grains from the Home Brew Company and Geterbrewed and other places. These are really easy and are a real improvement on standard kits because of the hopping and the use of steeping grains. And better yeast in most cases. The only additional time is the boil, which neednt be an hour. You could do a 30 min boil and increase the bittering hops. And obviously you can buy your extract, hops and grains separately and make any recipe you like. So it's more creative, the only job done for you is the mashing of the base malt. Which requires time and equipment.

 

[keirtristan]

I agree with everyone. I'm really a clueless Brewer but to me that's the fun. Play, play and more play. Oh, and of course drink, drink and more drink.

 

[keirtristan]

And, by the way, my first mix of extract and grain I messed up. I boiled the grain with the hops etc. But turned out lovely.