Kit Pimping Shopping List.

[Little Rock Brewing]

So far I've only brewed from premium kits, Bulldog, Muntons etc. As I'm an incessant fiddler I'd like to take it a step further and start pimping some basic kits up, a lot like the Coopers ones in the pimping thread. I live on a remote(ish) Island so mail order is my only option. I would like to get a range of ingredients, grains, malts, hops etc all in one go to enable me to fiddle! What would be your "brew store cupboard list". I like fruity IPAs and Belgian Saison type ales mostly, quite strong too! Many thanks in advance.

 

[crowcrow]

For a nice American ipa if that is what you like then citra and cascade hops will get you a lot of that flavour for dry hopping or even making a hop tea and adding to the kit boil.

When I did kits I think I only used brew sugar once or twice and generally went with dried malt extract, soft brown sugar, treacle or golden syrup. To be honest I didn't really know what I was doing or aiming for, I just wanted to try things out - and every kit I made this way turned out OK and all got drunk!

Do you want to stay with kits or tempted to move to all grain? I have moved to AG brewing and it hasn't been as hard as I thought it might be and gives a lot more flexibility.

 

[Little Rock Brewing]

Thanks for your advice, they're going in the basket then! I'm certainly keen to progress in this facinating hobby and see this as a stepping stone. Crazy thing is that I'm on a no carb keto diet so haven't properly tried any of the 5 brews I've made so far! Having a break for a week on Saturday, cant wait.

 

[damienair]

Thanks for your advice, they're going in the basket then! I'm certainly keen to progress in this facinating hobby and see this as a stepping stone. Crazy thing is that I'm on a no carb keto diet so haven't properly tried any of the 5 brews I've made so far! Having a break for a week on Saturday, cant wait.

I decided to build up a stash and made up 5 kits without touching them. It’s great to have a few done and ready. I made up the following kits:
Mangrove Jacks Pink Grapefruit IPA made with light dry malt extract.
Mangrove Jacks Bavarian Wheat beer made using wheat dry malt extract
Bruphoria James Blonde Ale- 3Kg 2 Can Kit from the Homebrew Company
Festival Oaked Apple Cider
Mangrove Jacks Juicy Session IPA made with 1.5 Kg of liquid malt extract.
I just started tucking into them 2 weeks ago. I’d previously made a Coopers Hefe Wheat kit using Wheat DME which was lovely. All the kits listed above are really good, the best is the Juicy Session IPA, but the others are lovely too. It’s nice to have a choice when a visitor who is not into an IPA can still enjoy a beer. My Brother in law was over at the weekend and brought a box of beer with him. He tried one of my home brews just to be polite, and loved both the Bavarian Wheat beer and the James Blonde Ale. Needless to say the Heinekens went home with him unopened.
Enjoy your brews.

 

[Little Rock Brewing]

Some more good ideas there damienair, cheers. My shopping basket is growing nicely. Bavarian wheat sound great.

 

[HSD]

I’d get some books in, the Brooklyn Brew shops books really got me thinking about beer recipes and ingredients, and the Palmer How to Brew + Hughes Home Brew beer are fantastic resources. Also a tinkerer, if doing a two can kit I’ll split it and do two slightly different versions to compare, great hobby so much to learn and you get beer at the end!

 

[Little Rock Brewing]

Good idea on the books, cheers. It certainly is an absorbing hobby. I was trying to learn Spanish but that's fallen by the wayside now!

 

[fury_tea]

If i was you I'd get:
A range of yeasts (keep them in the fridge)
A good stock of light DME (don't bother with any darker ones, you can do that with specialty malts if you need),
A good stock of brewing sugar,
A variety of hops (have a search for recipes for your favourite styles and make a note of those hops that come up regularly, then search the hop name and
The words "hop profile", so "Amarillo hop profile" etc) - keep these in the freezer.
A variety of specialty malts like crystal, special-B etc. You want around 100-500g of each (in my experience, the darker the grain, the less you will use) - keep these in a cool dry place.

If you want to get into mini mashes you could also get some base malts e.g. pilsner, pale ale, Vienna & Munich malts. You want 1-5kg of each.

You also want good storage boxes for your grain.

There's a lot to go at there, I would change only 1 or 2 things at a time and note the differences. Dry hopping and swapping the yeast are great places to start.

 

[Little Rock Brewing]

That's fantastic advice, thanks. After many hours reading through this forum I'm getting to grips with things such as the different yeasts having such an effect on the style of beer. Thinking Belgian Saisons here. Great advice on storage too. Cheers.

 

[Cwrex]

Thanks for your advice, they're going in the basket then! I'm certainly keen to progress in this facinating hobby and see this as a stepping stone. Crazy thing is that I'm on a no carb keto diet so haven't properly tried any of the 5 brews I've made so far! Having a break for a week on Saturday, cant wait.

I tend to break the Keto - drinks wise - but only for drinks that ive either brewed or distilled myself. I keep it just for every 3rd or 4th weekend. I'm back to Keto this coming Monday - great diet!

 

[fury_tea]

I missed the part about the low carb diet.

There are ways to enjoy a beer and keep it low carb.
Saison is a good style because they can chew through sugars and finish as low as 1.004.

The other option is to get some amylase enzyme for example:
https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/product/nbs-amyloglucosidase-300-enzyme/
This produces a very low carb beer by breaking down longer chain sugars so yeast can consume them, and this drying the beer out.
You will be left with a very dry (1.000 FG) beer. Look at styles like Brut IPA where this technique is applied with great success.

Are sweeteners allowed on Keto? If so, you could look at doing a hopped cider, let it ferment out dry and then back sweeten with some sweetener (or if you like dry cider you can skip this step). This is a good way to enjoy hops and alcohol but not have any carbs (this can be a good option for celiacs too).

 

[Little Rock Brewing]

Wow! I hadn't even considered a low carb beer. This could be a game changer for a keto dieter. The last brew I bottled was Hammer of Thor which I thought had stopped fermentation so pitched in some Belgian Abbey M47 yeast. 4 weeks later it was at 1.004. Happy days!