Kit & Kilo recommendations

[MrTwalky]

Howdy guys,

So I was asked to run a beginners brewing workshop. I've got a 1 hour time limit allocated to me.
I haven't brewed with kit and kilo for a while now that I'm on AG and partials, so I'm looking for a recipe that's tried and true. What are the best kits people have tried?

My plan so far is keeping it REALLY simple (no spec grains, hop boils etc) and making a beer that everybody likes purely from kits. I may go as far as making a simple hop tea to encourage the 'fresh ingredients' approach or dry hopping. Yeast will be US-05.
Stay your hand fancy brewers and keep it simple!! What's the best combo?

Cheers and beers
Twalky

 

[Alex.Tas]

This I guess depends on what sort of audience you are brewing for. Personally, I like wheat beers - which aren't to most of my friends taste. However an easy one you can do (and i had to bend your rule of using US05 here,

• Coopers wheat beer kit,
• 0.5kg LDME
• 0.6kg dry wheat malt
• made up to 20L
• 18.7 ibu
• 6.8 EBC ~ 3.1 deg L
• made with WB06

goes off like a rocket, so make sure you have enough headspace or use a blowoff, or maybe your into punishing yourself (in which case leave it unattended for a week or so and let it explode everywhere).

Another idea would be to try and get the mainstream peoples interest.... Grab a tin of coopers draught or lager. They will know the name draught and lager... Use with some ldme and your us05 and your away.

 

[mosto]

Being a beginners workshop, I'd be emphasising the processes rather than recipes at this stage, proper sanitazation, mixing of ingredients, ferment temps etc. Having said that, you don't want something that tastes like complete arse, so I'd go with a Coopers Australian Pale Ale or Candian Blonde kit. I use to base a lot of my kits and bits beers around these. If there's any dark beer lovers, the Cascade Chocolate Mahogany Porter is a very nice kit as well. With all of these use some DME (if the audience is handy to a LHBS) or at least a brew enhancer of some kind rather than sugar. If they've got to go to Woolies to buy sugar, they may as well grab a brew enhancer instead. Likewise with yeast, US05 if they've got a brew shop handy, otherwise kit yeast, explaining the whole time that investing a little time/money in sourcing better ingredients will result in better beer.

 

[Braumoasta]

Coopers Australian Pale Ale and their Canadian Blonde are two kit beers which when made up with 500g dry malt + 250g Dextrose (or Brewenhancer 2) seem to make any drinker happy. I reckon the English Bitters kit is also a cracker, but I guess for you it depends on if the drinkers are willing to touch a beer that isn't pale and overly fizzy.

 

[MrTwalky]

Its for a bunch of housing cooperative uni students so I don't think they'll be fussy about the beer. I was just conscious of making a hop bomb, though only using a K&K this probably won't happen...
Thanks for the suggestions, I don't mind changing the yeast to a WB or something but it obviously depends on the brew. I just have heaps of US-05 on hand. I'll look into the Coopers PA and blonde kits and DME instead of dex for sure.
My focus will be on brewing fundamentals (cleaning, temp etc) but I do want to provide a beer that tastes good, too many home brewers have quit because of a shitty first try. Also my reputation is on the line!

Cheers guys.

 

[rheffera]

I would encourage dry hopping and experimenting and specialty grains. My reasoning being is you are trying to get these guys into the hobby. I think just giving them a tin of Lager and LDME may turn them off homebrewing just like the normal folk who buy the coopers kits, follow the instructions then never brew again because they didnt like it. If you don't have the time to introduce them to Steeping some grain i would definetley drill into them that the possibilites are endless. Maybe give them some grain to take home to experiment with.

I agree with drilling into them about temperature and sanitation, and time in fermenter and bottles. Patience is required in this hobby and the turnaround time isn't as fast as they probably think. (Month and a half for me all up) We all may have different variations of methods (I've seen a few variations of extract brewing), but the one thing that is Set in Stone across all methods is sanitation and fermentation temperatures. I'd also talk about how each individual compontent of beer is important, and how the different yeasties can affect the beer, and yeast simply iisn't jsut yeast.

As for a reciepe:
Try a tin APA
1kilo LDME
12G hop tea cascade

For thouse who like stouts
Tin Coopers stout
1kilo LDME
12G fuggle hop tea.

 

[Bribie G]

In my KnK days I never had any issues with a tin of Coopers Real ale, a pack of BE2 and the tin yeast.
It has a pleasant bitterness so you know it's beer but not over the top in any department.

Probably please the VB drinkers.

 

[pjsyrax]

My first kit was the coopers Mexican Cerveza brewed to what ever was on the instructions..maybe BE2

I dry hopped with some galaxy and it turned out very nice and drinkable..enjoyed by many over summer.

I'd dial back the amount of galaxy I used or just stick with the recipie for beginners though.

Just my 2c

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Aussie Home Brewer mobile app

 

[AJ80]

My favourite two can brew:

- coopers European lager
- coopers Mexican cerveza
- US-05
- dry hop at end of ferment with 20g each of cascade and Amarillo.

Surprisingly delicious.

 

[yum beer]

i agree with Bribie. Coopers Pale Ale with BE2 or 1kg LDM. Kit yeast or better US-05

A small hop steep with Amarillo, Cascade, Citra.....one or all will certainly lift it, but a nice kit on its own.

 

[MrTwalky]

Here's what I'm thinking:
1 x Coopers pale ale kit
1 x LDME
20g? cascade pellets steeped
US-05
Filled to 19 or 20L

 

[_HOME_BREW_WALLACE_]

If you can get your hands on a Canadian Blonde kit it goes well with cascade hops.
In my KnK days i used to do:

1 tin Canadian Blonde
500g Light Dried malt
250g Dextrose
250g Maltodextrin

A small boil with some can goo and about 20g of cascade @ 15mins. Came up a treat.

Cheers.

 

[MrTwalky]

Just an update:
I bought a coopers PA and a Briess golden LME on recommendation from my LHBS and this forum. I'll be running the workshop tomorrow night so I'll let you know how it goes.
Cheers for the brainstorming session!
Twalky.

 

[MrTwalky]

Session was good. About 10 people showed up. Temp, sanitation, ingredients and process were my focus and I had some good questions. Now I hope they look after the bloody thing and not let it get too hot!!

 

[Yob]

Out of curiosity, did you do a hop steep or boil?

Are you all gunna get together to drink it?

 

[MrTwalky]

Out of curiosity, did you do a hop steep or boil?

Are you all gunna get together to drink it?

I did a 15g cascade hop tea in a coffee mug. I'm expecting the beer will turn out similar to a little creatures PA.
They bloody better invite me back for a tasting!!