MyQul
Chairman of the Bored
Have you been boiling the kit in your other partial mashes? As you dont need to/not supposed to boil kits
Please Give Me Your First Ale/Beer Kit Suggestions
- Thread starter FatDad
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Tony1951
Bungling Amateur
No - never did a partial mash. I jumped straight into Clibit's, stove top brewing from kits and never did another kit since. :)
Thanks for the clarification though.
I will still do the odd partial mash, probably in the winter when its too cold / wet to go outside.
Anyway as for kits well I haven't done either of these but I hear Coopers English Bitter is pretty good as is their IPA.
Although if it was me I would just go that one small step extra and get a Festival or Youngs Craft kit..The reason why I say extra step is because they have a dry hop.. I just found that those premium kits were just worth it more.
Anyway as for kits well I haven't done either of these but I hear Coopers English Bitter is pretty good as is their IPA.
Although if it was me I would just go that one small step extra and get a Festival or Youngs Craft kit..The reason why I say extra step is because they have a dry hop.. I just found that those premium kits were just worth it more.
LarryF
Brew Numpty
Coopers English Bitter and Stout are both great kits and great platforms to tweak with hops or extra fermentables if you want to bump up the ABV at all. A hint of coffee in the stout is nice. As of late though I'm sold on the John Bull IPA and Best Bitter kits, I've done them both recently and been really impressed by both of them.
I'm supposed to persuade you to use grain straight off. But I think doing a Coopers stout would be a great start, and is as easy as it gets.
Then you could do a kit and mash some grain instead of or as well as adding sugar/malt extract. Boil the wort and Chuck some hops in and you know how to make an all grain beer.
Which could be the next step. More grain and no kit.
See what I did there?
Then you could do a kit and mash some grain instead of or as well as adding sugar/malt extract. Boil the wort and Chuck some hops in and you know how to make an all grain beer.
Which could be the next step. More grain and no kit.
See what I did there?
FatDad
'Semper in excretum sum sed alta variat'
So if I get a can of coopers stout, 1kg beer enhancer am I good to go for a basic start?
Does the cooper stout can come with yeast?
Does the cooper stout can come with yeast?
Soton
some random guy
Just get a woodfords admirals reserve two can kit, add some hot water in your fermenter and that's it, it makes a beer as good if not better then most pub ales
BurtDakarax
Demi John
Supermarkets do tend to sell kits off cheap, after a few months.
Then it doesnt matter much if it goes a bit wrong.
Most supermarket kits will make a very acceptable brew.
Then it doesnt matter much if it goes a bit wrong.
Most supermarket kits will make a very acceptable brew.
Rather than buy some expensive sugar replacer like brewing sugar or DME - I'd recommend brewing short. In other words instead of making the kit up to 5 gallons, make it up to 4 instead. At the same time, use half a kilo of sugar instead of 1 kg. The result is a brew the same strength as the kit says it should be, but much more flavour, and because you've used only a small amount of white sugar you don't get the infamous `homebrew twang'.
I've done this with Brewmakers Victorian Bitter and Shamrock velvet stout and both came out at least as good as something you'd buy from the pub.
Tony1951
Bungling Amateur
I didn't notice till you mentioned it. Amazing. :)
FatDad
'Semper in excretum sum sed alta variat'
Thanks to ALL for your help with this. :
I've been out this morning and bought the Coopers Stout (ã14) and the beer kit enhancer (munton's) (ã6 for 1KG) from Wilkos (cost ã20 in total, I could have found it cheaper online but I want to crack on today if possible and it's still worth the money).
I'm going to go very basic to start (just as I did with my wines) and build from there as I get to grips with the basics.
I'm not expecting anything special here and even if it doesn't work out it's worth it for the experience.
I've been out this morning and bought the Coopers Stout (ã14) and the beer kit enhancer (munton's) (ã6 for 1KG) from Wilkos (cost ã20 in total, I could have found it cheaper online but I want to crack on today if possible and it's still worth the money).
I'm going to go very basic to start (just as I did with my wines) and build from there as I get to grips with the basics.
I'm not expecting anything special here and even if it doesn't work out it's worth it for the experience.
Keep it simple. Get a Cooper's original stout, and buy 1kg of light DME or 1kg brew enhancer (which is half DME and half brewing sugar).
Brew it to 21 litres.
This is pretty standard practice, and is close to what the manufacturer's instruct you to do, except you drop the amount a couple of litres which many people find works well, by lifting the flavour and the ABV a little.
Brew it to 21 litres.
This is pretty standard practice, and is close to what the manufacturer's instruct you to do, except you drop the amount a couple of litres which many people find works well, by lifting the flavour and the ABV a little.
FatDad
'Semper in excretum sum sed alta variat'
Thanks Clibit I will do exactly what you say (is this a Jedi mind-trick at play?) :shock:
Maybe. Who knows? :-)
Do a straight kit brew, and work towards using some grain instead of DME/brew enhancer. Mashing 1.5kg of pale malt is a simple step that will greatly improve the beer.
FatDad
'Semper in excretum sum sed alta variat'
So does the grain actually replace the sugar usually required for turning into alcohol?
Yes it does. Mashing converts the starches in the grains into sugar, which dissolve into the water. Most commercial beers are 90-100% grain, a large proportion are 100%.
What about the likes of Budweiser isnt that full of "corn sugar" or am i being stupid?
Probably
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