Can You Make Commerical Quality Beer With Kits?

[rysa555]

As the subject suggests, it is possible to make commercial quality beer with kits or do you need to be AG brewing to obtain these results?

 

[Kleiny]

Its not that you need all grain brewing, you need good ingredients Fresh extract or wort, Fresh hops, Healthy yeast pitched at the right temp and in the right quantity and great hygiene (and some control over many other variables). Great beers are made with Kit and bit brewing or extract brewing, some bad beers are made with All grain. All grain gives you infinite control about what goes into making your beer and allows for quality ingedients to be used.

Cheers
Kleiny

 

[Pollux]

Define commercial beer......

Do you want to make Tooheys News, or a tasty Pale Ale, perhaps a Unibroue clone of sorts??

 

[np1962]

Lovely Valley does it :icon_vomit:

Seriously, Kleiny is spot on with what he says.

Nige

 

[rclemmett]

Healthy yeast pitched at the right temp and in the right quantity and great hygiene

+1 for making a good kit.

They never seem to give you enough yeast with kits......

 

[newguy]

It really all comes down to your sanitation and if that's up to snuff, yes, it's completely possible. Just don't use any corn sugar like the k+k's that most of us started out with.

I know of a few kit beers that have won best of show in some pretty large competitions, and a couple of them used (gasp) dry yeast. As long as your sanitation is up to snuff, you can churn out awesome beer with LME, DME, cans of goo, or FWKs. The advantages with going all grain is that you have complete control over the ingredients and it's much cheaper than going the kit route. Sort of like baking a cake from scratch or using a cakemix-in-a-box. Both methods can make good cake, but you don't have much control over the finished product if you go the kit route.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Well..yes..

Good yeast at the right temp ( 18*c or less ) and fresh hops will get you down that path..

Actually I have made Coopers Pale Ale kit, and guess what...it was very close to Pale Ale...

Just dont EVER use sugar...allways use malt or malt extract

 

[PostModern]

Just dont EVER use sugar...allways use malt or malt extract

That's not a hard and fast rule, even for AG brewing. Sugar should be used with purpose. ie, you should know why you are using plain sugar and how much, not just "upping the fermentables".

 

[geoffi]

Not sure I'd say NEVER use sugar. I think with extract brews a little sugar is not a bad idea to improve fermentability and lighten the body a little. But only 5-10%. The massive amounts of sugar used with standard kits are definitely a no-no if you want a decent result.

 

[Fourstar]

1 good way (1 find) is todo a reduced vol kit. Especially if you like bitter beers 30+ IBU (alteast bitter for the average joe schmo), hoeevr that does not always apply, see below.

For instance the Coppers Aussie Pale Ale goo is only 14 IBU in 23L : Colour - 90EBC, Bitterness - 340IBU (/23)

So in a 15 L batch

You can get away with 22.6IBU @ 4.4abv in 15L with

1 Can of Coopers Pale Ale
500g of DME
US-05 Yeast

Will give you a cracker of a pale ale, thats balanced quite well too. Little work involved using using majority of the manufacturers goo as your base. As long as you have good water, sanitisation is up to scractch and fermentaton control is stable.. i think you can end up with crackers at basement costs too.

P.S. another awesome option is 2 tins of coopers pale ale will give you a 29IBU beer @ 4.5% @ 22L volume, slap a US-05 yeast on her and you are away with an awesome, clean beer

I think this is a viable option for me if im in a bind or can no longer do AG (yeah right!)


Like anything, the longer you do it, the better your processes become and the better your beer gets too!

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

My never use sugar was more in relation to the "use 1kg of sugar" with your kit..


Yes a small amount can be a good thing, just not the amounts stated on the tin

 

[technocat]

The short answer is I suppose you can, a lot of it is pretty bloody awful.

 

[buttersd70]

That's not a hard and fast rule, even for AG brewing. Sugar should be used with purpose. ie, you should know why you are using plain sugar and how much, not just "upping the fermentables".

I might surprise some, and agree with this.....a lot of ppl consider me to be a total sugar nazi (which, in a way I am, but in another way, I'm not)....but I think PoMo sums it up well here. If it serves a purpose....

From the perspective of kit brewing, though, in most cases, it's not required (or serves no valid purpose).

As to the OP's question...it depends. As others have pointed out, it depends on what you consider to be 'commercial quality'. One thing you will find in your brewing journey is that your tastes will change, also meaning that your perspective will change. Before I started HB I used to drink (don't laugh) West End Draught. When I started brewing kits, I thought that the kit brews (coopers kits) romped it in over the WE. Easy. Then I started drinking better commercial beers (like when I went out, and couldn't take HB with me). This started to make the HB taste bad. So I upped the stakes, and moved to extracts.....then, when I went out, I had to drink even better 'commercial' beer, cos the extracts were winning. Then I had to move on from extracts, cos the 'commercial' beer I was now drinking made the HB look bad....so I moved to AG (I skipped partials - I came back to them later, as an afterthought. IMO a partial with 50% grain can certainly be every bit as good as an AG, but thats another thread in itself). Now, with the exception of the most highly regarded imports on the market, nothing beats good, quality, balanced, well thought out (AG or heavily grain based partial). So, your tastes will vary. ATM, if you were to have a well prepared, well balance kit beer, you may well consider that to me excellent. But your tastes will eventually change, and you'll outgrow it, and move on to other things. In one way it's a blessing; in another way it's a curse. You become more and more hyper critical. Hobby turns to obsession; beer becomes something to evaluate and analyse, instead of something to get you rat arsed.... You'll find out. :lol:

 

[Brewer_010]

As the subject suggests, it is possible to make commercial quality beer with kits or do you need to be AG brewing to obtain these results?

I would suggest asking what kind of beer would you like to reproduce, then you can get some hints on recipes etc

What brand beer do you like? e.g LCPA or maybe crown lager? Plenty of people will be able to help with a recipe for you.

 

[rysa555]

it depends on what you consider to be 'commercial quality

I guess the best way to describe it would be a beer that wouldnt be out of place at your local pub. I know there are some average beers at pubs e.g. tooheys new, Im sure my beer is already better than that.

There does tend to be a homebrew taste to beers that are produced by new brewers, including myself, I wasnt sure if this was attributed to kit beers. Even though the beers are still nice and tasty, Im sure if it was on tap at the local pub along with 5 other commercial beers, if you asked a local punter to pick the homebrew, they could find it.

So ultimately I guess that is the test, producing a beer that people wouldnt know if it was brewed at Carlton brewery or in the home. And I guess thats what I was trying to ascertain with my original question, can that be achieved through kit beers.

 

[np1962]

1 good way (1 find) is todo a reduced vol kit. Especially if you like bitter beers 30+ IBU (alteast bitter for the average joe schmo), hoeevr that does not always apply, see below.

For instance the Coppers Aussie Pale Ale goo is only 14 IBU in 23L : Colour - 90EBC, Bitterness - 340IBU (/23)

So in a 15 L batch

You can get away with 22.6IBU @ 4.4abv in 15L with

1 Can of Coopers Pale Ale
500g of DME
US-05 Yeast

Will give you a cracker of a pale ale, thats balanced quite well too. Little work involved using using majority of the manufacturers goo as your base. As long as you have good water, sanitisation is up to scractch and fermentaton control is stable.. i think you can end up with crackers at basement costs too.

P.S. another awesome option is 2 tins of coopers pale ale will give you a 29IBU beer @ 4.5% @ 22L volume, slap a US-05 yeast on her and you are away with an awesome, clean beer

I think this is a viable option for me if im in a bind or can no longer do AG (yeah right!)


Like anything, the longer you do it, the better your processes become and the better your beer gets too!

Fourstar,
Your calculations are based on a wrong assumption from what I recall.
To calculate the bitterness of a Coopers goo can the formula is Can IBU*Weight in kg/ Final Volume so in your examples 340*1.7/23= 25.13IBU in 23L
In 15L you would have 38.53 IBU
Your 2 can would therefore give 340*3.4/22= 52.5IBU
These figures are also not quite correct as Coopers say that fermentation will reduce bitterness by somewhere between 10 and 30% making any calculation of actual IBU a very imprecise exercise.
My apologies to the OP for the off topic discussion.

Nige

 

[Verbyla]

I'd say that making commercial quality beer from a kit is very easy as there are a lot of beers on the market that taste like @#%&!!!

Making good quality beer on the other hand is a little harder but still very achievable with a kit.

I use kits and find the the best thing you can do for yourself is to throw away the yeast they give you and head down to your local brewery store to find the best yeast that has the qualities you are looking for in a beer.

Making sure that everything is clean is another must. Even if its "clean" in that it doesn't have any bad bacteria, you've got to give it a real good cleaning to get rid of any taste that may be left over from your last brew. An easy way to check this is by pouring near boiling water in the empty fermenter and sticking your head in to try identify any left over beer smells coming out.

I'm finding that my definition of what I'd call "a good beer" is changing and with every success i'm becoming more picky in the specific qualities i enjoy in a beer and that's the only real reason I'd one day not find that kits were good enough and move onto all grain.

 

[HoppingMad]

It is possible to create a beer from a kit that would fool someone into thinking it is a commercial one.

At my brew club we taste each other's beers constantly and there is a good mix of kit, kit & bit, extract and AG brewers at each meet.
I'm often stumped by some of the guys who have handed me a beer of excellent quality and then found out it is made with a kit. Some of these beers have tasted better than some of the AG beers handed around that night. Off the top of my head I can think of about 6 examples where I've been blown away and wished I'd made a beer like that - and I'm an all-grainer.

The thing these guys all have in common is:
- They all have good temp control at home with a space that gives them a constant temp that doesn't fluctuate.
- They are all very dilligent on sanitation.
- Most add stuff to their kit - like hops or swapping out the kit yeast for a specialty one.
- Most don't get kits from supermarkets.

Interestingly they also all 100% have one thing in common - they all have great relationships with their local homebrew store and actually listen to the guy at the store they deal with (something I'm often guilty of not doing) :unsure:

Hopper.

 

[ollave]

I'm finding that my definition of what I'd call "a good beer" is changing ...

*laughter*

Yup. And noticing things like head retention, colour, malt, hop bitterness/flavour/aroma, and carbonation level in commercial beers ... which means enjoying the good ones more, but also being irritated by the bad ones worse.

When I was learning to make espresso, someone asked the person instructing us what coffee she would order at a cafe herself. (Her answer: "Orange juice.") I appreciate a well made espresso even more now, but the bad ones are made more irritating by knowing what the barista did wrongly in making them.

I try to be uncritical about tea. Gotta preserve my innocence.

Cheers

P.S. If you really want trouble, head on over to pizzamaking.com and spend some time making your own pizzas ... and forever after noticing details of the crust, sauce and toppings on every slice of pizza you ever eat ....

 

[Fourstar]

Fourstar,
Your calculations are based on a wrong assumption from what I recall.
To calculate the bitterness of a Coopers goo can the formula is Can IBU*Weight in kg/ Final Volume so in your examples 340*1.7/23= 25.13IBU in 23L

Thansk for the info, the way they write it out i assumed 1.7kg = 340 IBU or 1kg = 200IBU <_< Do you have any idea why the details on the can are equal to per Kg? seems strange.