All Taste The Same.

[loikar]

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.

Sorry, Instant coffee is shit and is the equivelent of your twangy beer goop.
I'm not disputing that people drink it.
But no matter how you look at it, it's processed shit.

If they come to me and ask me how to make their coffee better, I'm going to tell them, grind some beans.

 

[manticle]

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



A shit FWK is going to taste better than a shit K&K
You and I both know that AG isn't difficult

BUT!

and this is a big BUT........(and a point I've made earlier that you either dimiss as irrelevant or have ignored or missed)

Let's give an average KK a score out of 10. Let's give it a 5

A kit brewer wants to know how to get a 7 or 8. Maybe a fresh wort kit? Good idea.

Brew fwk badly which makes it a shit FWK. Maybe it gets a 6 (if you're lucky). Is 1 point out of 10 worth the extra $20 the kit brewer spent? What do they then think of FWK or AG (which takes 3-6 hours depending on method as opposed to less than 1 for KK?).

My good AG brews are better than my shit kit, extract and partial brews but my good kit, extract and partial brews were better than my shit AG brews. I've tasted some kit beers that I would be hard pressed to know how they were made and some AG brews I've tipped down the sink. You can't make that shit irrelevant because it isn't irrelevant to anyone vaguely interested in home brewing.

We could argue in circles all night -it's obvious that you are so attached to your opinion that you have no inclination to even acknowledge if someone else makes a valid point, even if you have a counter point. He who shouts loudest isn't always right, just louder.

Be loud. See who listens.

 

[loikar]

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?

How many times do I have to re-quote your own words before you have any clue with what i'm on abour in respect to your pertinent point?

It is a special magic wand, and only if I can borrow her broomstick.

 

[petesbrew]

G'day & welcome aboard AHB Banjo.
I couldn't be arsed getting in on the argument, but will offer my 2c.
1. Temperature control is the key, even if its a wet towel and some freezer bricks, or even brewing outside of summer temps. Keep it down around 18-20c for ales, and you're fine.
2. Recipes - the internet is your friend. There's countless recipes out there for whatever you want to brew. You don't have to be stuck with the usual vb, extra dry, heineken clones. Maybe that's a reason they're all tasting the same? Anyway, it's up to how far you want to test your tastebuds.
3. Meet up with a homebrew club - meet some likeminded dudes and share their beers. They'll think yours are crap, and you'll be blown away by the flavour of their Belgian Blonde, the Dunkelweizen, the smoked porter, etc. It's a real eye opener, and you'll no doubt make some great new friendships.
4. Method - Knk... enjoy it, it's easy and quick, but you can still have fun experimenting with them. Move up to AG if and when you're ready. Not because some troll says "knk is shit".
5. Oh yeah Cleanliness is important... blah blah blah...
Cheers
Pete

 

[Banjo]

What are your ferment temps as per original post?
Basically I have followed the instructions on the can (25*) when i pitch the yeast.
Then on a heat pad, it varies between 18 to 23.

 

[manticle]

How many times do I have to re-quote your own words before you have any clue with what i'm on abour in respect to your pertinent point?[

Which makes your pertinent point reduced to:

AG is better than kit if everything else is equal.


Read the original post and tell me how that helps the OP any more than telling them their water is no good.

It's not an AG vs extract thread - you've tried to make it one but you may as well make a man out of straw, call him achmed and put him in a train station with a suspicious backpack.

 

[loikar]

:icon_chickcheers:

My Post From 2009

Re-read in this thread from today dopey:

me from today:

I know, that when I was all extract brewing, I thought my beers were fkn awesome, and I could drink them all day.
The sad truth, in hindsight was that they were not a patch on the beers I'm making now.
And Manticle, as much as I like you, if you were to say that your extracts were as good as or better than your AG's, I would out you as a liar.

If you're going to try and be a smart arse, it helps if you're not smashed bucket of crabs in the first place

 

[Hatchy]

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've spoken to blokes who are trying to work out what size esky to get for their mash tun & what sort of chiller they need that have never & possibly never will make a batch of beer. A bloke has asked me what he should do when I knew he'd been told how to brew by blokes that know way more about brewing than I do. I told him to go get a fermenter, a can of goo, some hops & a packet of us05. If you can't make acceptable beer from a kit then you won't make good AG beer.

Beerfingers, I'm going to get a can of mexican cerveza & make up another batch with some galaxy & cascade at some point & see if it's still as good as I remember it being. I'm pretty sure it will taste way better than some of my early AG beers.

 

[eamonnfoley]

Beerfingers - not sure where your going with all this, but you seem determined to disagree with everyone. As manticle pointed out it's just becoming noise.

First you didnt like that I suggested removing Chlorine in your tap water was a good idea for extract brewers. Then you decided that extract brewing was so inferior it was hardly worth it. And then you didnt like the suggestion from Thirsty Boy that its a decent idea to master K&K before you go all grain. Then you moved onto coffee.....

YES - All grain is the best, most of us believe that. But most people are trying to say is extract beer can be pretty good under controlled conditions, leaving the rehydration/dilution of goo/DME as the ONLY factor that could potentially give a minor off-flavour (which is overrated and often mistaken - usually its things like chlorine or bad sanitation). I've tasted some great extract beer - could hardly believe it came from a tin. I am tempted to knock one up with what I know now and based on this thread.

 

[Lodan]

:icon_offtopic:
I'm still laughing at the popcorn and bear pics

 

[manticle]

Basically I have followed the instructions on the can (25*) when i pitch the yeast.
Then on a heat pad, it varies between 18 to 23.

Thought I'd replied but the internet must have eaten it.

Try getting the pitching temp (adding yeast) and the ferment temp to around 17-18. Up to 20-22 is OK but consistency is crucial.

Forget the heatpad. When you add the yeast, try sanitising a stainless steel whisk (clean it and boil it in water for an hour) then whisk the brew for 5 minutes. Aeration of yeast, early in its life with beer is good. Avoid aeration once fermentation starts though.

Do these things and see if it makes a difference.

If it does, and you like it, try a fresh wort kit as Beerfingers has humbly suggested.

 

[Steve@PMF82]

. If you can't make acceptable beer from a kit then you won't make good AG beer.
.

This is just pointless semantics, Thirsty boy also made a similar comment and this is true to a certain extent, but if you have someone who has never brewed before and does not like processed ingredients, say they already cook and are hell bent on only using fresh ingredients and they want to do the same with making beer.
There is no reason why they cant learn all the other aspects of brewing on small batches of AG.

If people make snap judgements on anything after only doing it once or twice and decide its not for them, or its shit, thats their problem and they prob would never have had the patience to brew anything decent anyway.

 

[petesbrew]

G'day Folks, Banjo here!
I'm new too the forum and also too homebrewin.
So far i have made 10 or more batches of beer of different types. (All the Coopers kits, VB, Morgans etc)
All the beers i have made seem to taste the same, whether it's hopped or not, exept for a couple of dark ales (Coopers and Tooheys old).
The beers seem to be watery, and have a fruity/cidery taste, that my mate descibed as tasting like homebrew.
The head on the beer varies from bottle too bottle, and even if it has a good head, it dos'nt last long.
I have only made 1 batch of beer with suger, the rest have been 50/50 dex/malt.
The bottles I use are the old 800ml VB ones, that seem to be thicker than the new 750ml.
I take the time too clean the bottles and the fermenter properly, so i dont think infection is an issue.
The beer is drinkable, but could be heaps better.
I am just about too put down a Czech Pilsener, hopped with Saaz, but I'm not planning on wasting this one!
Any advice is most welcome.

Cheers Banjo

Have you put down the pilsner one yet Banjo? If not, guys please put the nerdrage aside and help a dude out.
I'd say do this, but it's off the top of my head.
Czech Pils kit
1kg LDME (Light Dried Malt Extract), or 1.5kg LLME (Light Liquid Malt Extract)
180g Carapils grain - look in the articles at steeping grain.
25g Saaz dry hopped
Dried Lager yeast - I'd us S-189, available from Craftbrewer, it's a good yeast and can be brewed easily with sydney winter temps (and supposedly up to 18c with no probs)
Otherwise Saflager 34/70 should do the job.
Pete

 

[DU99]

Fresh Meaning and Definition

1. (superl) New; original; additional.
2. (superl) Not salt; as, fresh water, in distinction from that which is from the sea, or brackish; fresh meat, in distinction from that which is pickled or salted.
3. (superl) In a raw, green, or untried state; uncultivated; uncultured; unpracticed; as, a fresh hand on a ship.
4. (n.) A stream or spring of fresh water.
5. (n.) A flood; a freshet.
6. (superl) Youthful; florid; as, these fresh nymphs.
7. (n.) The mingling of fresh water with salt in rivers or bays, as by means of a flood of fresh water flowing toward or into the sea.
8. (superl) Renewed in vigor, alacrity, or readiness for action; as, fresh for a combat; hence, tending to renew in vigor; rather strong; cool or brisk; as, a fresh wind.
9. (v. t.) To refresh; to freshen.
10. (superl) Lately produced, gathered, or prepared for market; not stale; not dried or preserved; not wilted, faded, or tainted; in good condition; as, fresh vegetables, flowers, eggs, meat, fruit, etc.; recently made or obtained; occurring again; repeated; as, a fresh supply of goods; fresh tea, raisins, etc.; lately come or made public; as, fresh news; recently taken from a well or spring; as, fresh water.
11. (superl) Possessed of original life and vigor; new and strong; unimpaired; sound.

how long does the fresh product sit on the shelf..

i am not disagreeing with anyone,but in some cases it's what people can afford to do and the space they have to do it in,and the money to do it with..all grain is the ultimate result..

 

[kelbygreen]

sounds great pete I must admit I skipped this whole thread to this page as the typical go straight to AG shit comes out!. we all start some where and diving into AG is easy now but some people like me wanted to get the process down first not go LOOK! I can make great beer even if I do it shit it will be good! no I want to do it right and make it better!

Ok on topic! Pete has a good start for pilsner (if you can afford it and source it locally) try briess malts they are so bloody good as close to AG you can get without a FWK cost more yes but great! sub for pilsner malt if using briess. I would also use 200g dex if using LDME to thin it out a touch and 20g of carapils wont be noticable so go 200g.

Use swiss lager yeast (if thats the s-189 then sorry) if going from craft brewer as its warming up and it can tolerate 19deg if you dont have temp control otherwise s-23 is good. ferment for 14 days at least prob 10 days at 10-12 deg and 4 days at 18 deg or untill gravity is consistent. Then chill to 1-4 deg for at least a week Id do it 2+ I do 4-5 weeks and its clear as. then bottle or keg and leave till carbed. WIth kit and extract it is best to leave it condition for at least a month min 2 months and the beer will be a totally different beer

 

[pk.sax]

I was just not gonna reply... Then I saw OP actually came back discussed in his own thread

Mate, what they say about temp....

Also, apart from that, you can get rid of the HB twang from K&K beer but it won't be K&K any more. I did my first K&K as per recipe with the kit except that I didn't have a heater and the shop was out of stock so it accidentally fermented between 15-20 C. It was drinkable, just, for a little while anyway.

For my second try, I picked up a Canadian blonde can and boiled the crap out of it as I read somewhere that doing so reduces the bitterness. Then I added a whole can of 'fresh' wheat extract to it, topped it all up with a can of towhees liquid brewing sugar (corn starch). I also hopped it with fresh hallertau as a 60 minute boil. Finally, fermented @ 18C with US05 yeast.

Now, this beer wasn't bad. The twang was still there but was faint. The head on it was great. It was a bit viscous even - aka mouthfeel - when drinking it didn't feel like a thin beer. Taste was great. My mate loved it, and he's a hophead!! He loved my euro hopped medium bitterness beer. Guys at the club gave me decent feedback on it that the fermentation was right etc etc, taste wasn't special but quite acceptable.

All good and happy.

Except.......

All that stuffing around cost money to buy the extra hops, malt extract, good sugar..... A Fresh Wort Kit costs less IMO. And they give you a packet of dry yeast (like US05) free with it. Most importantly though, it does not come with a shit instruction set that tells you to ferment between 18-25.

As said above, put away that heat pad for now. Kit beers lag a lot so brewers tend to think the extra heat helps - its a bad solution.
Learn how to activate/rehydrate your yeast prior to pitching. IMO, it helps protect from dud yeast that will take forever. I never sprinkle it dry onto the wort.
If you are really keen on not buying FWKs, get unhopped extract, hops and yeast and try doing a recipe that calls for all that. The homebrew twang is supposedly due to the 'hop extract' used in the cans of goo sold as kits rather than real fresh hops. Unhopped extract doesn't suffer from this.
Be pre-warned though, extract brewing will cost more than kit brewing and not get you the same quality as grain brewing (or cheating with FWKs). By the time you add up the cost of the bits in Kits & bits, it's a bloody fortune that could've bought you so much real goodness.

PS: Disclaimer - I do not intend to argue any of this, take my advice with a grain of salt or two and happy brewing

 

[kelbygreen]

you forgot to mention the people like me that work 60 hours a week that have the time to sit down on the little time off and spend 4-5 hours brewing!! Yes I AG but if I was home for the 10 days I am away and didnt get 4 days off after then there is no way I could have the time to do AG

 

[Nevalicious]

:icon_offtopic:
I'm still laughing at the popcorn and bear pics

Off topic??

This whole thread has been derailed...

Agree about the popcorn and bear pics though

 

[fcmcg]

Fresh Meaning and Definition

1. (superl) New; original; additional.
2. (superl) Not salt; as, fresh water, in distinction from that which is from the sea, or brackish; fresh meat, in distinction from that which is pickled or salted.
3. (superl) In a raw, green, or untried state; uncultivated; uncultured; unpracticed; as, a fresh hand on a ship.
4. (n.) A stream or spring of fresh water.
5. (n.) A flood; a freshet.
6. (superl) Youthful; florid; as, these fresh nymphs.
7. (n.) The mingling of fresh water with salt in rivers or bays, as by means of a flood of fresh water flowing toward or into the sea.
8. (superl) Renewed in vigor, alacrity, or readiness for action; as, fresh for a combat; hence, tending to renew in vigor; rather strong; cool or brisk; as, a fresh wind.
9. (v. t.) To refresh; to freshen.
10. (superl) Lately produced, gathered, or prepared for market; not stale; not dried or preserved; not wilted, faded, or tainted; in good condition; as, fresh vegetables, flowers, eggs, meat, fruit, etc.; recently made or obtained; occurring again; repeated; as, a fresh supply of goods; fresh tea, raisins, etc.; lately come or made public; as, fresh news; recently taken from a well or spring; as, fresh water.
11. (superl) Possessed of original life and vigor; new and strong; unimpaired; sound.

how long does the fresh product sit on the shelf..

i am not disagreeing with anyone,but in some cases it's what people can afford to do and the space they have to do it in,and the money to do it with..all grain is the ultimate result..

Du , the majority of this post is as about as usefull as the all the agro that has gone on since the OP's first post....
The only thing i do agree with is the last statement you have made...
There has been alot of agro in this thread...all Banjo wanted was some useful advice about making HIS beer....
Can we please get this thread onto a useful topic to help the man ??
I wasn't gonna buy in but i've been shaking my head at some of the posts in this thread for a couple of hours now....
Banjo...maybe just concern yourself with page one and the first 4 or so usefull posts....
Good luck bloke...
This is my 2c...
That is all...
Ferg

 

[loikar]

BUT!

and this is a big BUT........(and a point I've made earlier that you either dimiss as irrelevant or have ignored or missed)

Let's give an average KK a score out of 10. Let's give it a 5

A kit brewer wants to know how to get a 7 or 8. Maybe a fresh wort kit? Good idea.

Brew fwk badly which makes it a shit FWK. Maybe it gets a 6 (if you're lucky). Is 1 point out of 10 worth the extra $20 the kit brewer spent? What do they then think of FWK or AG (which takes 3-6 hours depending on method as opposed to less than 1 for KK?).

It's reasonable to assume in that scenario that the brewer getting an average of 5 for his kits would know that his FWK was fermenting incorrectly, given that the FWK was brewed to the same environmental conditions as the K&K, there is no way the FWK would come out the same as or 1 point higher than a K&K. of course a pre-infected FWK is a slim variable, but one that would in no doubt be obvious to the brewer.

So, if you are suggesting that the Brewer brewed his K&K at 18c but brewed his FWK at 27c, then it should be obvious to the brewer what the variable of the bad brew was.

Now before you start mashed the reply button:
To tie this into the OP who's thread is titled "All taste the same", it would indicate that this scenario of variation is not evident.
2 things; either he's brewing consistently hot, or he's brewing with shit ingredients.
I suspect both. Now you can pat him on the head and say; "brew your shit beer cooler", or you can say use better ingredients, get your process down, and then move on.
So you can harp on about him cooking it a little hot being the cause, but I say shit ingredients = shit beer.
Extract fits that description.

My good AG brews are better than my shit kit, extract and partial brews but my good kit, extract and partial brews were better than my shit AG brews. I've tasted some kit beers that I would be hard pressed to know how they were made and some AG brews I've tipped down the sink. You can't make that shit irrelevant because it isn't irrelevant to anyone vaguely interested in home brewing.

yep, I'll agree, an AG with DMS up to its eyeballs is not as good as a manicured Extract brew.
But you can put all the effort into babying an all Extract brew and it'll come out ok while you can put a half arsed into an AG, and it will come out better than your pampered Extract.

We could argue in circles all night -it's obvious that you are so attached to your opinion that you have no inclination to even acknowledge if someone else makes a valid point, even if you have a counter point. He who shouts loudest isn't always right, just louder.

Be loud. See who listens.

Its text Manticle, you can't hear it.....or can you?

If you thought Extract brewing was the ducks guts, you would be doing it.
but you don't, because it's not.

Just because you don't want to tell a K&K brewer that his ingredients are inferior and make him feel warm and fuzzy about his twangy extract brew, it doesn't mean his beer is any good.

Process is process, no matter what the ingredients are.
A great process with shit ingredients will amount to a well processed shit product
A great process with great ingredients will amount to a great product.

it's not rocket science mate, it's just beer.