Back to Kit Brews for a while

[An Ankoù]

I can only speak for my self but I find kits can produce surprisingly decent beer, while I mostly do all grain sometimes I just want forty pints of relatively decent session beer with minimum effort, and for a reasonable price, which kits can provide,

They must have improved a lot then since John Bull and Geordie!

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I restarted on kits 10 years ago but they mostly had that twang so moved to extract which never did. Most recipes were just 1.5 kg of Coopers liquid extract and 1kg OG DME. Never boiled and made a hop tea to add. Made IPA's and Wheat beers. Then did AG and never looked back.

 

[obscure]

They must have improved a lot then since John Bull and Geordie!

It varies most of the time these days when I use them I use a one can kit and mash a couple of kilo of pale malt give it a quick thirty minute boil and use that instead of sugar. It’s not as quick as just mixing malt extract and water but quicker than doing a full all grain batch, and produces quite good results, I’m currently drinking a Simply Yorkshire Bitter kit made this way and while it’s not the greatest beer in the world it is non the less a nice easy to drink session bitter that I certainly wouldn’t complain about if served in a pub.

I think a large part of the problem with kits is that they often sat on retailers shelf’s for weeks or months, combined with people actually following the instructions on the can (you are not going to get decent beer in 10-14 days from a kit, even with all grain there are only a handful of styles I find that work well with that kind of turn around.)

If you use a kit from a seller with a high turnover of stock (so not out of date) make a point of leaving in primary for a reasonable length of time and conditioning for a decent amount of time I find you can get decent enough beer, at least to my taste, even just made with malt extract.

I enjoy brewing and when I have a spare Saturday will always opt for all grain but at the end of the day I am working full time and my spare time is limited with a kit I can have a keg of fairly decent beer for about £20 with minimum effort on my part.

 

[moto748]

They must have improved a lot then since John Bull and Geordie!

That is literally my last experience with kits, forty years ago!

But now I see people talking about 'AG' kits. If the kits contain grains that require mashing, then where is the big time saving compared to DIY? Is it just the convenience of having all the materials all weighed out ready? Because that doesn't seem an enormous saving. I'd always thought the whole point of kits was that no fiddly (for some) temp control was required, just a basic boil. Am I missing something here?

 

[An Ankoù]

The ultimate kit is a crate of chilled beer, a glass and a bottle opener!
That's time saving.

 

[obscure]

That is literally my last experience with kits, forty years ago!

But now I see people talking about 'AG' kits. If the kits contain grains that require mashing, then where is the big time saving compared to DIY? Is it just the convenience of having all the materials all weighed out ready? Because that doesn't seem an enormous saving. I'd always thought the whole point of kits was that no fiddly (for some) temp control was required, just a basic boil. Am I missing something here?

Sometimes it’s nice just to get everything pre weighed, though I mostly use the custom recipe generator on Malt Miller or Geterbrewed which means no wastage, and allows me to adjust for my typically terrible efficiency (as most actual kits seem to be designed for 75-80% efficiency).

 

[moto748]

I don't use a custom recipe generator, but I created a simple spreadsheet template I can plug numbers into to proportion batch sizes from any recipe. Usually I run the figures from a recipe I've found into a BHE calculator to check what kind of efficiency is being assumed, then if it much different to what I've found I can typically achieve, I can tweak the base malt quantity a little.

 

[Worf]

I think all of my reasons for extract brewing have been given. Not sure if equipment costs have been mentioned though, but time allocation is a big one for me.

I've never used pre-hopped extract. That would seem to take virtually all the flexibility and option out of what beer to brew. Yet, over time I've gone completely to DME rather than deal with the loss of what doesn't ooze out of the can, plus it mixes better IMHO.

Getting decent drink for the dollar is the main reason I got into brewing and the main reason I'm still at it. Most of the commercial stuff is mundane (or just plain crap) and the better stuff is out of the range of my pocket change.

 

[The Baron]

A follow up to my 2 Wilko kits I have brewed.
The first is the First Gold IPA - not too bad it has been improved slightly I would think with the extra 30g of first gold hops in a dry hop. However it lacks the depth of my AG brews but is drinkable and fills a keg while I play brewing catch up.
The second is the Felling Hoppy IPA this had a 10g dry hop of Amarillo which I added 30g of Summit hops(the free ones from Anna -Thank you). It also lacks depth in the beer and I would not not take this as a really hoppy but lightly hopped IPA so again its Ok but drinkable but not got the backbone of my AG.
To summarise i think these cheaper kits need some serious additions to get them to a level some of us brewers would expect or put the extra to the better 2 can kits which is what I will do next time I am short of brew time, I have managed to get 2 AG's on the go now so thats a future experiment

 

[Peter Pavlovic]

Hi All

I use LME with hops, water and yeast, boil for a hour ,somethines stagger various hop additions, in my cignet electric tea urn, cool with a immesion coil, ferment at 20 C in a plastic FV in a 'Fast fermenter' insulated jacket using frozne 2 litre lemonade botltes filled with salt water. Storage 5 litre part kegs in a insulated box for 5 days then using the frozen bottles to help maintain temperature and a hand pump to raise the beer.
Very 'heath robinson ' approach but I am happy with the results as is my beautiful wife the offical Kingdom of Furnace Green 'Ale taster'

Keep safe and brew

 

[G-Town Brewer]

I mostly do kits during the summer as I don't have time for AG. I'm a big fan of the Festival kits and have brewed some cracking batches using those - Stag and Pilgrims Hope have been highlights recently. I've started experimenting with (un-hopped) extract and it's good fun experimenting with different hops and speciality grains. It also provides the chance to brew smaller batches which I like. I did a single hop (First Gold) extract brew at the weekend. I have no idea how it's going to turn out, but it tasted good going into the FV. For reference, my recipe was:

10l Batch
OG 1.050
~40 IBU (calculated on Brewfather)

1.2kg Mangrove Jack Pure Malt Extract
500g Light DME
100g Light Crystal
70g First Gold Hops
7g American Ale Yeast

Steeped Grains in 2l of hot (80 degrees water) for 30 mins.
Made up to 5l and added 500g DME

30 Min boil
18g FG @ 30mins
12g FG @ 15mins
12g FG @ 5mins
28g FG @FO (stand for 15 mins.

I'm undecided on whether it might benefit from dry hopping as I have some FG left over or leave it as is. Open to suggestions on that one...!