Best kit to experiment with?

[thomascrabs]

I've just kicked off my 4th kit (Geordie winter warmer) after 3 fairly successful kits. I'm now getting the itch to start experimenting a bit.

For the next kit I'm starting to think about adding treacle or dry hops etc.

What are good kits to start experimenting with? I guess it depends on what experimenting I do but in my mind I want a plain kit where adding stuff doesn't complicate any existing flavours too much.

Any thoughts?

P.s. would using a pressure barrel as a secondary fv work for dry hopping?

 

[GavH]

I see a lot of folks using Coopers kits as the basis for experimentation. Some use them to experiment with different fermentables or simply dry hopping, others even using two Coopers kits (not always the same one!) to create a Toucan kit.

 

[LeithR]

Coopers is a good kit, but does it match the type of beer do you enjoy drinking? If you enjoy traditional English beer then they are the type of kit you might like to try experimenting with first. If you watch Wilko's and Tesco's homebrew sections you might be lucky with some cheap kits. These are the best for experimentation as they are cheap. Recently Tesco's had a sale on and the kits were £2.74 each.

My experimental additions have been to make up hop teas of whatever hops I had in abundance - my latest one was 50g of Dr Rudi and some EKG, (about 20g) boiled in a pan for 15 - 20 mins then the hops filtered out and the tea put into the brew. This along with 400g of Dry Malt Extract mixed in made an excellent batch. I also added a good quality yeast rather than the yeast which comes with the kit.

If you do a few of these kits like that, you end up with a wide selection of beers to have on hand of similar character but of different taste.

 

[thomascrabs]

Thanks good advice that.

Kits for £2.74?! Gutted.


How about using the pressure barrel as a 2nd fv?

 

[MyQul]

Before I moved on to AG I did a Geordie Winter Warmer with 250g of dark brown muscavado sugar made short to 20L turned out great

 

[LeithR]

@thomascrabs,
Yes, you can use the PB as a 2nd FV, the problem would be fitting an airlock. At the end of fermentation in your PB you would have to decant to a bottling bucket or other FV then clean and sanitize the PB and put the brew back for conditioning and dispensing.

Unless you were planning to bottle some of the brew.

In either case you would have to prime as normal.