Complete newbie but excited to get started

[Shaun Fitzpatrick]

Hi guys, to be honest i am here mainly for advice as i will be able to offer (at this stage) little in the way of meaningful information (unless you have a question about retro gaming, in which case i'm happy to help)
38YO male, 4 children, busy work and home-life, fed up spending money on beer at the weekend so making my own was always something in the back of my mind. My wife got me a kit from homebrewonline last year, followed the instructions to the letter and made a IPA (Festival Razorback IPA Beer Kit), was grand but i wanted to try a lager which is where i'm at now, and a little lost to be honest. The above kit had all ingredients and was fairly straight forward. Have recently purchased Mangrove Jacks Brewers Series 40 Pint Pilsner and all that is contained is the malt extract and yest, no hops? also i bought brewing sugar to go with this (in hindsight I should have ordered enhancer, but its done now) and am not sure how much to add? I did have a look through some threads but to be honest a lot of the information went way over my head. This is something im going to persevere with, but im going to need a little help.
Thanks

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Welcome to the forum, there are plenty of members here who are happy to help so ask away in the relevent forum :thumba:

 

[MmmBeer]

Hi welcome to the forum. With regard to the pilsner kit, the malt extract will be pre hopped, so nothing additional needed. The IPA would have had hops for dry hopping to add aroma, far less common for a pilsner.

 

[Rodcx500z]

Welcome to the forum

 

[The Baron]

Don't let this put you off but Lager is probably one of the hardest styles to get right or something near as it has so little ingredients bad/off tastes have nowhere to hide also temp control is critical unless you do a pseudo Lager which that kit may be one. Time is the champion of the homebrewer so ignore the instructions and read on this forum and you will get a better idea of timescales and a better end result. The general guidelines with any brew is 2 weeks in the fermentor as starter as the instructions are very optimistic by the kit makers (they want you to think you can be drinking it in 10 days as a selling point) and as I said time is your champion in this hobby until you get more experience then you will find a few shortcuts to produce some styles quicker. Good luck and listen to advise on this forum as there are many experienced brewers

 

[An Ankoù]

Welcome Shaun. I'll leave others to comment on kits, but the Baron's right about lager. Not that it's hard to make good beer with a lager recipe, rather that if it's not spot on it doesn't taste like lager. I always make mine in the winter for the following summer as I don't want to tie up my fridges for months on end.

 

[Shaun Fitzpatrick]

Hi welcome to the forum. With regard to the pilsner kit, the malt extract will be pre hopped, so nothing additional needed. The IPA would have had hops for dry hopping to add aroma, far less common for a pilsner.

Don't let this put you off but Lager is probably one of the hardest styles to get right or something near as it has so little ingredients bad/off tastes have nowhere to hide also temp control is critical unless you do a pseudo Lager which that kit may be one. Time is the champion of the homebrewer so ignore the instructions and read on this forum and you will get a better idea of timescales and a better end result. The general guidelines with any brew is 2 weeks in the fermentor as starter as the instructions are very optimistic by the kit makers (they want you to think you can be drinking it in 10 days as a selling point) and as I said time is your champion in this hobby until you get more experience then you will find a few shortcuts to produce some styles quicker. Good luck and listen to advise on this forum as there are many experienced brewers

Sound advice, much appreciated, i was skeptical about the amount of time they said it would take, which why i was pretty pleased i came here in the first place. i have planned to try a couple of these kits first to cut my teeth before delving deeper1

 

[Gerryjo]

Hi and welcome to the forum..

 

[GerritT]

Sound advice, much appreciated, i was skeptical about the amount of time they said it would take, which why i was pretty pleased i came here in the first place. i have planned to try a couple of these kits first to cut my teeth before delving deeper1

Welcome, and kits are a good path to get some grip on the process!

 

[Brew_DD2]

Sound advice, much appreciated, i was skeptical about the amount of time they said it would take, which why i was pretty pleased i came here in the first place. i have planned to try a couple of these kits first to cut my teeth before delving deeper1

Welcome to the rabbit hole.

 

[AntComo]

Sega or Nintendo?

(Also a newbie, little else to add)

 

[dad_of_jon]

Sega or Nintendo?

(Also a newbie, little else to add)

Could be a neo-geo gamer

 

[LED_ZEP]

Welcome to the forum.

I also love retro gaming; Shove ha'penny, skittles, bagatelle and a bit of whippet racing.

 

[bobukbrewer]

crown and anchor is my favourite

 

[GerritT]

Oh, and get a book!