Brew Techniques For Quality And Economy (like Yeast Cake Reuse, Toucan

[petesbrew]

I could never get my K&K beers to taste like commercial beer.

What a lot of the Kit Brewers don't realise is nearly every single person who now brews AG beers thinks, "Fark, why didn't I learn to do this years ago. My beers are now perfect and brewing has changed from being a chore to a hobby."

This brewer's paradigm shift fosters uncontrollable evangelistic wont to convert; to save the souls of those still consuming the Devil's Twang.

Sadly you end up coming across as the equivalent of a Jehovah's Witness or Mormon knocking on your door.

 

[RobboMC]

Recipe wise - Dr Smurto's Golden Ale recipe (the KnK version) could be one to try out with your mates.
I did a similar one with a cheap Wanders (or Brigalow) kit and it worked beautifully.

This is not a good way to get stocks into your fridge. Someone must have been stealing the Dr Smurto
from my garage it dissappeared so quickly.

And will someone please come back to the thread!
How can these guys make K&K faster and cheaper?

A mate of mine made a thing called 'Brew 16' a few years back
A can of Coopers Original Dark Ale and a kg of raw sugar, total cost $16 ( back then anyway )
fermented for 6 days, bottled for 10 and we would take it camping and drink the whole batch
in about 4 days. It wasn't comp winning beer, but it certainly quenched your thirst after a day at the beach.

The old Coopers Original series are the lowest quality cans I would brew with personally, but that's up to you.
Supermarkets and K-Mart tend to offer them a $ less than the HBS, and sometimes even discount when they come toward the use by date. I once saw a guy in Woolies with 8 discounted cans in his trolley, bugger beat me to them.

You can sometimes get a discounted can for around $10, add half a kg of raw or brown sugar, and half a kg of Brewing Sugar and you get something of slightly higher quality then VB for around $15 a batch or 50c a longneck.

Brew in double batches and water down when bottling to halve the time invested, though the bottle washing doesn't halve sadly. But make sure of your sanitation when doing this as the brewing process that would help sterlise is now over.

Bulk priming is faster and easier and with 3 people bottling it's super quick. I get my kids to pass the empties and do a 50 bottle batch in around an hour.

 

[Nick JD]

Sadly you end up coming across as the equivalent of a Jehovah's Witness or Mormon knocking on your door.

Beer 8:21

21 He will yet fill your mouth with amber nectar
and your lips with shouts of joy.

 

[buckerooni]

Perhaps I'm coming across as a bit cheap, it's part of the equation for sure but it's more about finding the sweetspot of cost, time and result by exploring techniques and approaches around the entire lifecycle of brewing.

What is worth doing, what is not, what is too high a risk, what things aren't worth skimping on. For example using sugar instead of LDME may be putting cost too far ahead of taste. These are the types of things I'm interested in and much of that is coming out in this discussion.

As I see it the 2 important stages are recipe execution and bottling/kegging. As it's a K&K approach at the moment I want to explore it, try to maximise it and see where other techniques can offer to make the entire experience more rewarding - that is, the making AND drinking AND value.

once i get this one solved I'm moving onto world peace

 

[buckerooni]

Perhaps I'm coming across as a bit cheap, it's part of the equation for sure but it's more about finding the sweetspot of cost, time and result by exploring techniques and approaches around the entire lifecycle of brewing.

What is worth doing, what is not, what is too high a risk, what things aren't worth skimping on. For example using sugar instead of LDME may be putting cost too far ahead of taste. These are the types of things I'm interested in and much of that is coming out in this discussion.

As I see it the 2 important stages are recipe execution and bottling/kegging. As it's a K&K approach at the moment I want to explore it, try to maximise it and see where other techniques can offer to make the entire experience more rewarding - that is, the making AND drinking AND value.

once i get this one solved I'm moving onto world peace

 

[robbo5253]

Something that I think is cheap and rewarding is steeping grain and throwing in to the fermenter, Probably only a few $ a batch and makes a huge difference in my opinion. Have a read up around here but really simply its soaking the grain in a pot at around 65 degrees and then straining and boiling for 5-10 minutes before putting in to the fermenter with the rest of the ingredients.
Cheers
Robbo

 

[stux]

I find the only way I can enjoy drinking a kit brew is if there are some steeped grains and some flavour/aroma hopping. The grains really help to cover up the kit twang and you never get good aroma out of a plain kit.

Many brew stores offer "grain flavour packs"

225g or so of specialty grains and a handful of hops makes all the difference

http://www.absolutehomebrew.com.au/?page_i...ainflavourpacks

I'd say its even more important than using a better yeast.

 

[Nick JD]

For example using sugar instead of LDME may be putting cost too far ahead of taste. These are the types of things I'm interested in and much of that is coming out in this discussion.

This is a personal issue though. One man's "taste" is very rarely another's.

I know this statement won't be popular with some die-hard K&K fans - but IM not very HO, using cans of goop is putting cost (time) too far ahead of taste. But, that's IMO - so really this thread is more about what you're prepared to accept.

At the end of the day I'd suggest yeast knowledge and management will improve your beers most if you use inferior ingredients. Beer in the shops is made from malted barley and hops - using other ingredients than these will always be a compromise and your compromise is not often the same as everyone else's.

All these guys that steep grains and boil hop and add LDME and great yeast etc etc and then call it "kit brewing" might as well just be mashing. It'll cost half the amount.

 

[iralosavic]

Let's face it, if you buy megaswill and enjoy it then the chances are you're going to be impressed with a toucan coopers lager, sugar and 34/70. This blokes friends probably don't know the difference between an ale and a lager, so tactically he's better off keeping them interested by not asking for more financial outlay until they whet their appetite and take a bit of interest.

I had a mate insist last night that his Hahn Super Dry was the best beer he's ever had. I got him to try a DSGA and it wasn't dry enough for him...

 

[Goose]

I also used to go KnK, the biggest issue with it is that you may have a perfect brewing process and sanitation but you just dont know how fresh the contents of that can are ... a use by date doesnt tell you if its been baked in the sun at 45 degrees while in storage. LM does deteriorate with age and I am convinced that a metallic taste came from some part of the packaging process.

For a consideration of taste quality, if you get your hands on some DME you can get creative an make up your own recipes just by boiling some hops, even in a partial boil. When I did that the dreaded home brew twang disappeared. Do some cost calcs, if you get the DME in bulk you may find it competitive. . Of course steeping grains takes it a step further but its not essential.

 

[Nick JD]

I also used to go KnK, the biggest issue with it is that you may have a perfect brewing process and sanitation but you just dont know how fresh the contents of that can are ... a use by date doesnt tell you if its been baked in the sun at 45 degrees while in storage. LM does deteriorate with age and I am convinced that a metallic taste came from some part of the packaging process.

For a consideration of taste quality, if you get your hands on some DME you can get creative an make up your own recipes just by boiling some hops, even in a partial boil. When I did that the dreaded home brew twang disappeared. Do some cost calcs, if you get the DME in bulk you may find it competitive. . Of course steeping grains takes it a step further but its not essential.

I too isolated the TWANG to be in the CAN.

100% malt extract and boiled hop brews are twangless. Strongly leads me to believe that concentrated malt extract stored for periods reacts badly with isohops in ways that dilute wort (commercial beer) doesn't.

 

[buckerooni]

interesting about the twang, a quick calc with brewmate requires about 3kgs for DME for a 23L brew.

just spoke to grain & grape who do 22KG bags of DME for $185 which works out at $8.40 a kilo - looking good! If anyone knows a place in Melbourne that can beat that I'd be interested.

I could follow RobboMC's approach do put down a concentrate and water down to roughly 45L when racking now that I have these from my old man's shed (note: never been used!) :

 

[roverfj1200]

I used to make the cheapest brew I could like a can and sugar kit yeast. Always had beer but most where not great to drink.$15

Moved up to better cans and BE2. Most good beers. $18

Now doing extract brews and now make great beer. Still under $30 a batch. If I where to buy in bulk would be under $25 a batch.

Reusing yeast and will soon reuse aroma hops to bitter with and the cost will drop again.

But each to his own.

Best thing to do is play around a little with each batch and work on your technique and you will see the cost drop and the beer improve.

But one thing is for sure. Good ingredients will make better beer.

I would rather pay a bit more for a beer that is great to drink...

Cheers.