All Taste The Same.

[loikar]

Or 20 litres...

If you have the equipment, make it 50 Litres...

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Or 20 litres...

+2, especially when some goose comes along and creates the illegitimate love-child of the stovetop method!

I do up to 30L on the stovetop. I could do more (Maxi-BIAB x 2 pots), but I just haven't bothered yet.

Goomba

 

[Lodan]

Why can't we all just get along?!


Banjo there are some good points if you can pick through the arguments.
Check the article section here for some additional tips

Kits & Extracts
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...o&showcat=4

 

[manticle]

Yep, agreed
So regardless if you're AG'ing or K&K the fundamentals of brewing will stay the same blah blah, so lets forget about the fermenting process for a sec because I think everyone agrees if you fk up a ferment, it's going to taste shit no matter where the wort came from,

That's just it though - everyone agrees who already knows. You and I know- Op maybe doesn't. This thread is a new brewer wondering why their beer tastes thin and cidery. Chances are, it's a ferment issue, specifically temperature, that is having this effect. Grabbing an FWK without this information will be of no use to them.

Fermentation issues are exactly what is relevant to the thread or at least to the OP.

If the OP wants to go AG and gets this concept then Nick's stovetop thread is probably the easiest demystification of things.

A lot of new kit brewers don't even realise there is such a thing as making beer from scratch and it can seem daunting until it's done. Telling them their beer is shit might make them throw up their hands and think '****'n beer nerds grumble grumble I just want cheap beer arrogant prick grumble grumble'.

I would prefer people got things, slowly if they need to rather than not get them at all. If they can jump straight in then good on them. If they can't, no worries.

 

[loikar]

Hey BF did you go to private school by any chance? :icon_cheers:

No mate, School was boring h34r:

 

[loikar]

That's just it though - everyone agrees who already knows. You and I know- Op maybe doesn't. This thread is a new brewer wondering why their beer tastes thin and cidery. Chances are, it's a ferment issue, specifically temperature, that is having this effect. Grabbing an FWK without this information will be of no use to them.

Fermentation issues are exactly what is relevant to the thread or at least to the OP.

If the OP wants to go AG and gets this concept then Nick's stovetop thread is probably the easiest demystification of things.

A lot of new kit brewers don't even realise there is such a thing as making beer from scratch and it can seem daunting until it's done. Telling them their beer is shit might make them throw up their hands and think '****'n beer nerds grumble grumble I just want cheap beer arrogant prick grumble grumble'.

I would prefer people got things, slowly if they need to rather than not get them at all. If they can jump straight in then good on them. If they can't, no worries.

Nice Dodge :icon_cheers:

What's the difference between getting things slowly on a shitty tin of goop and a FWK?
a hot brewed FWK is still going to taste better than a hot brewd tin of goop.

Which is worse?
Telling them their beer is shit and they should be making it from grain
or; Telling them their shit beer is nice?

As a brewer, which one would you prefer to hear?

 

[manticle]

Dodge smodge.


Actually the difference is that if you lead someone to believe that AG or FWK or whatever is super and they make shit beer with it then they develop no understanding of how home brew can be as good as many commercial beers and better than some of them. Conclusion might be that AG is a waste of time considering it's not much better/cheaper than basic KK.

If you tell me 'brew an FWK - it will be great' and I do it badly and it's horrible - what will I think? A bit like getting a Carlton Dry buddy to try a craft brew finally, after months of haggling and it's oxidised. Boring mate goes straight back to Carlton Dry with the added brick wall obstacle of knowing "tried that shit mate, fuckn poof drink tastes like a rank sink fulla dishes and costs $20 a six pack to boot'.

Tell me my beer is shit because it's been brewed too hot, with a crap yeast AND with condensed, processed ingredients. Help me understand why.

Tell me I can improve it by fermenting cooler, with a good yeast AND using better ingredients. Tell me it's not hard and give me a place where I can start researching.

I don't disagree with you that a FWK is the easiest way of turning out a commercial quality beer at home with no fuss. I don't disagree with you that good mash beer is head and shoulders above good extract/kit beer.

I don't believe that the response, or all the hoo-ha that it has entailed will serve a new brewer including the OP particularly well.

Admittedly if someone asked me how to make their mayonnaise in a jar taste good I'd probably answer: 'by throwing it out and making it properly from eggs, vinegar and oil' but we all suffer from occasional hypocrisy.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Are you an all grain brewer?

I am, and i disagree with it too.

However i dont disagree with the notion that you are able to make better beers as you progress up what is a pretty traditional ladder of brewing. Straight K&K -> kits and bits -> extract -> steeping grains -> minimash etc etc or something like that.

But i also get that not only are there people out there who not only aren't at the "good" end of that scale, but who will never want to be there. The proecss just doesn't interest them, the price of entry doesn't interest them, they just (horror of horrors) like the way they brew now. And IMO anyway if you cant make a pretty decent drop of beer from a can of goo and a bag of stuff from woollies, then you have bugger all chance of doing it from grain.

I dont for a miniute suggest that the beers will be as good as those produced by a talented AG brewer, but there is no reason at all why they should be actually bad.

My brother in law's dad is a K&K man - he knows i an a more advanced brewer and likes my beer... But has absolutely no interest in advancing his process in the direction of grain brewing. He asked for some advice about how his beers tasted and what he could do to improve them and his consistency - but made it clear he was totally uninterested in using grain, extract, adding more than a teabag type hop character. Bubt if i could think of things to help him improve his brewing, without changing the basic way he brews... Could i make some suggestions please??

So i wrote this for him

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A2j_MO6...c/edit?hl=en_US

Its just a collection of "good practise" and its never going to turn a K&K beer into an award winning homebrew or anything even close - but its got enough tweaks and hints to stop K&K beers from being actively bad and make them "not bad at all". I know the brother in laws Dad turned his beers from "smile politely and tip it out when he's not looking" to half decent beers that i look forward to drinking and discussing with him; and would in general choose in preference to the standard mega brew beers he also keeps in his fridge.

And thats all he wanted - who am i totell him he should want more?

 

[NickB]

 

[Braumoasta]

And thats all he wanted - who am i totell him he should want more?

Excellent mindset. I'm a bit of a coffee snob, only use freshly roasted and ground beans, use a good quality machine to produce an excellent coffee. Many people still prefer the taste of instant coffee over freshly brewed coffee using fresh beans. I can't tell them that they are wrong for thinking that instant coffee tastes better, because to them it just does. So to the people on here who are telling others that the beer they make is not nice, need to just grow up a little and realise that everyone has personal preferences, and if the brewer likes the taste of his beer then they shouldn't be telling them that their idea of a good tasting beer is wrong.

 

[Synthetase]

Did you read anything at all?
Anything?

Yes. And a badly fermented FWK still tastes like shit no matter how much reading you've done.

Mate I agree with you that AG wins hands down; I'd never go back to kits and bits. But I have tasted some shockingly bad AG/FWK beers.

The best thing that happened to my own brewing was the discovery of temperature control.

So, to clarify, if you're going to **** it up, you might as well **** up a cheap kit as opposed to >$40 worth of FWK + yeast and hops. And if you're not controlling your parameters like temperature and sanitation, then you're probably going to **** it up.

 

[loikar]

I don't disagree with you that a FWK is the easiest way of turning out a commercial quality beer at home with no fuss. I don't disagree with you that good mash beer is head and shoulders above good extract/kit beer.

I don't believe that the response, or all the hoo-ha that it has entailed will serve a new brewer including the OP particularly well.

Admittedly if someone asked me how to make their mayonnaise in a jar taste good I'd probably answer: 'by throwing it out and making it properly from eggs, vinegar and oil' but we all suffer from occasional hypocrisy.

As stated previously, givin that all things are equal, I removed the irrelivent part of your reply as we have already established that no matter what you brew, with the wrong ferment temp, lack of sanitation etc, if it's an all grain or a K&K it will be a shit result.
The OP, as a new brewer, will never get an expected result of a VB or Super dry from tins, never mind something slightly more tasteful. However as I have said before, a hot FWK will still be better than a hot K&K.


What I have left in, is all you had to say.

 

[manticle]

I don't understand how you can take the most obvious, pertinent point from the OP and make it irrelevant.

You must have a special magic wand.

Can I borrow it to wave at my mother?

 

[Banjo]

Thanks for the advice guys.
At the moment i am between houses and hav'nt got the space to do much.
In the future, i plan to get a dedicated fridge and a keg setup, as well as try more advanced methods.
In reguards to sterilizing the equipment, i use pink stain initially, and then sanitiser or Milton on both the fermenter, bottles and bits and pieces.
A mate of mine uses hot water only, on his bottles. Is this good enough?

Cheers Banjo

 

[manticle]

You might get away with hot water, you might not. It's a balance of ease vs wasted time that you have to decide.

IF you clean bottles immediately then you stand a good chance but a no rinse sanitiser is so easy to use, cost effective and gives peace of mind.


What are your ferment temps as per original post? This is the most likely cause of your problems although everything else suggested and mentioned will help make better beer.

 

[jyo]

I feel sorry for the OP.

Q- "How can I improve my beer?"
A- (Well the most vitriolic one anyway)"You can't, all your beer tastes like arse and always will, regardless. Brewing All-Grain is the only way."

Out of curiosity, I had a look through the WA state comp results over the past couple of years. Funny to see that quite a few kits did really well. Even a couple of medals. Stupid judges.

 

[Synthetase]

Thanks for the advice guys.
A mate of mine uses hot water only, on his bottles. Is this good enough?

Cheers Banjo

Depends on how hot it is. I used to put bottles in big pot full of boiling water (was a real pain in the arse and I didn't do it for long). Hot water from the tap isn't ideal and wont kill all the nasties that may make it into your brew. As Manticle said, it's best to use a no-rinse sanitiser like star san.

 

[loikar]

I am, and i disagree with it too.

So K&K don't have a twang to them? or that Willy Nelson will be twangier falling into a banjo display?

However i dont disagree with the notion that you are able to make better beers as you progress up what is a pretty traditional ladder of brewing. Straight K&K -> kits and bits -> extract -> steeping grains -> minimash etc etc or something like that.

Why do you need to start at K&K and work their way up TB?, why is that the way it has to be?, why cant a brewer be told to throw away his can opener and start on FWK? or BIAB or AG for that matter? A shit FWK is going to taste better than a shit K&K
You and I both know that AG isn't difficult

But i also get that not only are there people out there who not only aren't at the "good" end of that scale, but who will never want to be there. The proecss just doesn't interest them, the price of entry doesn't interest them, they just (horror of horrors) like the way they brew now. And IMO anyway if you cant make a pretty decent drop of beer from a can of goo and a bag of stuff from woollies, then you have bugger all chance of doing it from grain.

And if you like the stuff that you're brewing with a can of goo and a bag of stuff form wollies, then you should have no need to post on any beer forum asking why it tastes shit. To those people, good on them, their brewing beer for cheap piss, and that's what their getting.

I dont for a miniute suggest that the beers will be as good as those produced by a talented AG brewer, but there is no reason at all why they should be actually bad.

I wouldn't suggest that the beers would be anywhere near as good as a half arsed AG brewer, and I suspect you would agree, since you are an AG brewer and haven't reverted back to extract.

My brother in law's dad is a K&K man - he knows i an a more advanced brewer and likes my beer... But has absolutely no interest in advancing his process in the direction of grain brewing. He asked for some advice about how his beers tasted and what he could do to improve them and his consistency - but made it clear he was totally uninterested in using grain, extract, adding more than a teabag type hop character. Bubt if i could think of things to help him improve his brewing, without changing the basic way he brews... Could i make some suggestions please??

So i wrote this for him

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A2j_MO6...c/edit?hl=en_US

Its just a collection of "good practise" and its never going to turn a K&K beer into an award winning homebrew or anything even close - but its got enough tweaks and hints to stop K&K beers from being actively bad and make them "not bad at all". I know the brother in laws Dad turned his beers from "smile politely and tip it out when he's not looking" to half decent beers that i look forward to drinking and discussing with him; and would in general choose in preference to the standard mega brew beers he also keeps in his fridge.

And thats all he wanted - who am i totell him he should want more?

nice one, good on you for providing the best process for him.

But I still say, he wasn't happy with his tin of goop beer and wanted something better.
What if you say to him; "give me the cash you'd spend on K&K and I'll make you a FWK that you can ferment out"
Not for the cash, but you know as well as I do, the more you drink better beer, the less you like shit ones.

If K&K were a nice beer TB, you wouldn't be doing AG.

I still say:
1. Extract beers are shit.
2. A stuffed up AG or FWK will still taste better than a stuffed up K&K
3. I have met No one, heard of no one, read of no one that Brewed All Grain and decided that Extract brewing was better and gone back to it
4. if you can make a cup of tea, or make a bowl of porridge, you can AG
5. A FWK is still cheaper than buying 2.5 slabs of VB

 

[humulus]

Having learnt my lessons=Sanitation-temp,sanitation-temp,etc,etc :icon_cheers:

 

[loikar]

Yes. And a badly fermented FWK still tastes like shit no matter how much reading you've done.

Not as bad a badly fermented K&K

Mate I agree with you that AG wins hands down; I'd never go back to kits and bits. But I have tasted some shockingly bad AG/FWK beers.
The best thing that happened to my own brewing was the discovery of temperature control.

So, to clarify, if you're going to **** it up, you might as well **** up a cheap kit as opposed to >$40 worth of FWK + yeast and hops. And if you're not controlling your parameters like temperature and sanitation, then you're probably going to **** it up.

That works both ways though mate, if you're going to do a good one, better to do it on a FWK than a twangy K&K.

And of Course AG wins hands down, you'd still be making Extracts if it didn't