So, for christmas my brother got me the following all grain home brew kit.
Brewdog Punk IPA Kit
I had never done any sort of home brewing prior to getting started with this kit. I had bought some things to make cider with however i never got round to actually doing anything with it. The equipment included in the kit was:
1 gallon carboy
racking tube
airlock
siphoning tube and lock
glass thermometer
The kit also included 4 different hops sealed in a vacumn packed bags, a bag full of grains and some sanitizer. The kit also stated i'd need a large pot and a sieve.
As i was new to home brewing i decided to follow the instructions to the letter.
On brew day i followed the instructions to the letter. The instructions advised me to heat 2 liters of water to 66 degrees Celsius and then dump my bag of grains in. I did just that and let the grains mash for and hour. I repeatedly went back to check the temperature of the grains and even turned the hob back on to get the grains back up to temperature. I then 'mashed out' to 77 degrees Celsius
As instructed i heated 4 liters of water up to 68 degrees Celsius for sparging. I put the grains into my sieve over my boil pot and let the wort drain into it. I followed this up by pouring the sparge water over the grains in the sieve to get my wort. Unfortunately my sieve was only just big enough to hold the grains and pouring the sparge water meant some grains slipped over the side into my wort. I had to fish these grains out.
Now i had my wort and i was ready to boil. The instructions advised me to throw various amounts of hops in at different time intervals. Some straight away, some with 15 minutes to go and yet more at flameout. After the 60 minute boil was over i then dumped my boil pot into a water bath with some ice packs to cool it down.
Once the wort had cooled down to 21 degrees celsius i was ready to pitch the yeast. I put the work into my carboy via a funnel and a sieve to get rid of the hops from the wort. I threw in the dry yeast, shook the whole thing up and then stuck a airlock in the top.
2 Weeks later it was time to bottle. By this point i had bought myself an autosiphon but apart from that i still decided to follow the instructions to the letter. The method for siphoning in the kit seems much too complex. The instructions said i should use clear honey as a primer, so i mixed up three tablespoons of honey with 200ml of water. I then mixed my wort with this before putting it into bottles.
I cracked open my first bottle of this brew yesterday and compared it to a bottle of Punk IPA i bought from Sainsburys to compare. My brew is basically a muted version of the real thing. The flavours were similar but much more understated. The beer also came out slightly over carbonated.
All in all i thought this was a great way to get into homebrewing small all grain batches. Its given me the confidence to try further all grain batches using the kit that has been supplied. The instructions were clear and easy to follow and it showed how easy it is to brew decent home brew at home.
I videoed both the bottling and tasting for my youtube channel. Check them out here:
Bottling
Tasting
Brewdog Punk IPA Kit
I had never done any sort of home brewing prior to getting started with this kit. I had bought some things to make cider with however i never got round to actually doing anything with it. The equipment included in the kit was:
1 gallon carboy
racking tube
airlock
siphoning tube and lock
glass thermometer
The kit also included 4 different hops sealed in a vacumn packed bags, a bag full of grains and some sanitizer. The kit also stated i'd need a large pot and a sieve.
As i was new to home brewing i decided to follow the instructions to the letter.
On brew day i followed the instructions to the letter. The instructions advised me to heat 2 liters of water to 66 degrees Celsius and then dump my bag of grains in. I did just that and let the grains mash for and hour. I repeatedly went back to check the temperature of the grains and even turned the hob back on to get the grains back up to temperature. I then 'mashed out' to 77 degrees Celsius
As instructed i heated 4 liters of water up to 68 degrees Celsius for sparging. I put the grains into my sieve over my boil pot and let the wort drain into it. I followed this up by pouring the sparge water over the grains in the sieve to get my wort. Unfortunately my sieve was only just big enough to hold the grains and pouring the sparge water meant some grains slipped over the side into my wort. I had to fish these grains out.
Now i had my wort and i was ready to boil. The instructions advised me to throw various amounts of hops in at different time intervals. Some straight away, some with 15 minutes to go and yet more at flameout. After the 60 minute boil was over i then dumped my boil pot into a water bath with some ice packs to cool it down.
Once the wort had cooled down to 21 degrees celsius i was ready to pitch the yeast. I put the work into my carboy via a funnel and a sieve to get rid of the hops from the wort. I threw in the dry yeast, shook the whole thing up and then stuck a airlock in the top.
2 Weeks later it was time to bottle. By this point i had bought myself an autosiphon but apart from that i still decided to follow the instructions to the letter. The method for siphoning in the kit seems much too complex. The instructions said i should use clear honey as a primer, so i mixed up three tablespoons of honey with 200ml of water. I then mixed my wort with this before putting it into bottles.
I cracked open my first bottle of this brew yesterday and compared it to a bottle of Punk IPA i bought from Sainsburys to compare. My brew is basically a muted version of the real thing. The flavours were similar but much more understated. The beer also came out slightly over carbonated.
All in all i thought this was a great way to get into homebrewing small all grain batches. Its given me the confidence to try further all grain batches using the kit that has been supplied. The instructions were clear and easy to follow and it showed how easy it is to brew decent home brew at home.
I videoed both the bottling and tasting for my youtube channel. Check them out here:
Bottling
Tasting
