Ebay Grain Kit?

[wildburkey]

Hi Everyone, my 3 tier mashtun is near complete so I have started looking into getting some ingredients. Just wondering if anyone has had any luck with these kits on ebay, I thought it might be a good way to start out and get my head around what's gotta be done. http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Home-Brew-All-Grain-Mash-Cracked-Grain-Malt-Ingredient-Kit-2-7kg-Malt-Hops-Yeast-/221572989632?hash=item3396c782c0
I am going to be batch sparging and was thinking about doing two smaller batches for my first time in case anything goes wrong and also to test for consistency. I plan on trying to make a little creatures bright ale recipe found on this forum once I am confident in what I am doing and know what I need. Can anyone tell me if a 71L boil kettle will be big enough for a 52L batch?
I have brewed LME kits for over 10 years so I have all the equipment neccesary for brewing, the mash tun is all there and I have built a stir plate and bought a beaker with a magnetic stir bar for culturing some yeasties, is there anything else I'll be needing? I assume I can get by with a hydrometer instead of a refractometer.

 

[TheBlackAdder]

Be interested to see how you go with this

Price seems reasonable.

The pack will make a 23L or so batch.

Throwing in the water treatment is an interesting addition.

Looks nice a nice little SMASH-esque kit

 

[luggy]

seems ok but you'd need to have a recipe in mind, I wouldnt just buy a kit from them they could send you anything

 

[SBOB]

a 23L batch from under 3kg of grain is going to be interesting..... thats going to be a very low OG

 

[TheBlackAdder]

I read 3.7kg the first time....

The pale malt and crystal should make something drinkable...a sort of english pale ale

95% base
5% specialty

Scale up in beer smith till you hit 2.7kg?

 

[Dae Tripper]

$40 For 2.85kg of grain, some hops and a pack of yeast, ya mad! Check out some fourm sponsors! I personally use Brewman.

 

[Dae Tripper]

In a 23L with 2L kettle loss, the batch would give you 2.7% beer.
My last Pacific ale was 5.4% approx 4.6kg BB ale, 1kg wheat, 30g Galaxy, uso5 and the price is comparable. Just saying.

 

[real_beer]

To be fair the ad does say it makes 15 to 23 litres. I think if you want someone to spend time measuring, packing, and preparing the ingredients for one batch of beer the price seems okay.

 

[Dae Tripper]

To be fair it is 100g shy of twice the amount of grain measured, packed, even with boil times on hop bags and dry hops in a teabag. Defend it all you like but calculators don't lie.

 

[SBOB]

I think if you want someone to spend time measuring, packing, and preparing the ingredients for one batch of beer the price seems okay.

Brewman will do exactly this for you via his (ex MBH's) Brewbuilder software...
and you can customise the recipe to your liking or use one of the many 'in-built' ones

 

[real_beer]

To be fair it is 100g shy of twice the amount of grain measured, packed, even with boil times on hop bags and dry hops in a teabag. Defend it all you like but calculators don't lie.

I'm not defending anyone I'm just saying the price is still okay for what you get. If someone else has a better deal going it doesn't mean the one listed in the original post is no good.

 

[wildburkey]

Thanks for the reply's. I ended up ordering 2 kits for a trial run (about $60 with combined shipping), I was going to order an australian ale pack from cheeky peak but by the time I added shipping it was going to be too expensive. I will stock up on grain and hops once I get my own mill, how do I get in contact with brew man, and does anyone know if he cracks it and sends to Tasmania?

 

[Dae Tripper]

http://www.brewman.com.au
He will mill anything you like, very handy for spec malt etc. Just ask about shipping rates.
Use the brew builder and you can save recipes and order with it as well.

 

[TheBlackAdder]

Thanks for the reply's. I ended up ordering 2 kits for a trial run (about $60 with combined shipping), I was going to order an australian ale pack from cheeky peak but by the time I added shipping it was going to be too expensive. I will stock up on grain and hops once I get my own mill, how do I get in contact with brew man, and does anyone know if he cracks it and sends to Tasmania?

Hope your first AG goes well!

The ebay price is okay and is an easy way to do a first AG

But I do agree with others and for future batches I would look at a LHBS or another online supplier (plenty of sponsors on forum)

For example, my last batch for a golden ale came up about the same price as your ebay from LHBS:
$23 for 5.3kg grain
~$10 hops (50g)
~$7 yeast packet

It is significantly more grain for a 25L batch at about the same price. But more importantly, much more flexible on recipes

Keep us updated

 

[wildburkey]

The grain kit arrived today, the dude stuffed up and only sent 1 kit tho; I gave him a call and he was apologetic and going to send out the other one tomorrow. Doesn't really bother me cause I wont get a chance to brew till the weekend
Here's the recipe that was supplied, does it seem OK? I'm not too sure if the water treatment is necessary,I have good quality water where I live, it only has a very faint chlorine smell and taste.

 

[Diesel80]

Leave your brew water out overnight in pot the night before and the chlorine will sort itself out / or boil the water for 10 mins and cool to mash temp over time.
That will take care of your chlorine.

cheers,
D80

 

[wildburkey]

Cheers Diesel, I assume the 500g of brown sugar should make up for the lesser amount of grain?

 

[Diesel80]

It would for Alcohol, but will ferment out 100% and may thin the body of the beer too much. Add some LME or DME instead.

Edit:
I put your recipe into some brewing software for 23L, as it stands you are looking at about 3.8% (as written). If you add 500g of Dry Malt Extract and keep the sugar you will bump to just shy of 4.5%.
Similar strength if you add 1kg of DME and drop sugar altogether.
Double everything if doubling the batch (see you have a large pot).

Without knowing the AA% of the hops but using brewing software defaults it is going to be about as bitter as a corona. As a result i would be tempted to tweak the 60min hops up to 25g and the 1min hops down to 25g. Leave the other as is.

You are cooling this batch right?

Should be a good one :beerbang:

Cheers,
D80

 

[wildburkey]

Thx again, I don't really like the idea of using table sugar so 1Kg of DME it will be. I'll try the different hopping and let you know how it goes.
If by cooling you mean using an immersion chiller; yes I will be.

Cheers

 

[wildburkey]

OK, so the other package only arrived today and my local HBS is in the transition of moving so I can't get DME untill next next week :-(
I'm getting impatient and just want to give this a go with what I have, can anyone point me in the right direction to the brew software so I can try calculate what I can do with what I have?
Cheers.

EDIT: Found the link on the top of the page, it's pretty full on. Is the water chemistry important if I have good quality water?