Newbie Kit Brewer - Your Insights & Help Please

[pongo]

Hey Folks.

I'm new to this forum (Intro post here) and the fine arts of brewing and would like your help and 2 cents.

I'm almost ready to start a brew and have a few ingredients on hand... namely:

• A Coopers Daught Kit
• A Coopers Pale Ale Kit
• 1.25kg of dextrose, and
• 1.75kg of Light Dried Malt Extract (Briess Light Pilsen)

So a few questions to you all:

1. If the above is all you have to work with, what would you use in your brew?
2. If you were a brew noob but could buy and add other ingredients to your brew, what would you add?
3. What is this malt? Is it any good?

Thanks muchly for your help!

Pongo

 

[CrookedFingers]

Hi pongo.
I would go with the two cans of coops or 1 can of either one with the breiss malt.
Find out what the ibus of the coops tins are , then you could add hops to make it more bitter if you want, or just for flavour or aroma.
Dex will just thin out your brew if you use large quantities, I only ever used up to 200g to boost ABV a tiny bit.
I am sure you will get many options and ideas from other brewers.
Have fun man !

CF

 

[Yob]

^^ spot on, go easy on the dex..

I'd go the pale Ale kit myself, it's a great base from which to explore hops and yeast, I've not used the pilsner ldme though so dunno what it brings.. Can't be a bad thing though, just maybe light on body..

 

[menoetes]

Yeah the Coopers Pale kit with 1.5kg of the dry Pilsen malt (I prefer it over regular light dry malt for Pale Ales myself) will be a good starter, make it up to 23 liters and perhaps even try adding some hops if you have access to them?

Cascade and/or Citra are popular for new brewers that can get them... Just boil up to 25g of hops in a liter or two of water for 5 or 10 minutes before adding them to your fermenter for a first timer will give you an idea of just how good home-brewed beer can be.

 

[manticle]

Either kit with 1kg of the dme and 200-250 dex.
Briess dried malt is good quality.

To add in future - flavour hops if you like hoppy beers, different yeast like safale us05.
A lot depends on you and the beer you want to make, as well as your ability to maintain a specific temperature. Ferment either of those kits at about 20 deg. 17-22 as a target range.

 

[pongo]

Awesome spread of replies folks. Thanks so much!

Manticle, on the temps, is it permissible to let the beer drop below or above those temps? Knowing the temp of my bathroom things will float around 20 without heating, but it can get colder / hotter in there.

Looks like I'm heading for a beer with 1 - 1.5kg of the malt...

What does this stuff cost if you buy it in bulk. It wasn't too cheap in comparrision to the dex.


Thanks again for the input!

 

[manticle]

Cooler means the yeast may slow or stall depending on what yeast.
Hotter means production of more flavours that can verge from fruity to alcoholic, solventy and headache creating. Temp control is one of the most important aspects of brewing good beer and the kit intructions will tell you to ferment way too hot.
Cool is better than hot in most instances but requires patience.
Chuck the fermenter in 20 deg water bath and regularly add hot water bottles or icebricks depending on tempetature swings. The first 3 or so days are the most important for keeping temp cool rather than hot.

 

[shacked]

+1 for US05 yeast. Totally worth the extra few bucks.

+1 for some extra hops!

 

[i-a-n]

On the other hand you could always stick strictly to the instructions and experiment with alterations once you know that are doing everything right.
Crawl, walk, run.
I'm such a boring *******.

 

[manticle]

The instructions on most tins are rubbish. A lot of people give up on home brewing after fermenting their first tin at 27 degrees.

 

[void]

Pongo, to answer your question about bulk malt extract, I bought a 25kg bag of Muntons light DME for $160 which works out at $6.40 per kg. I keep it in a large plastic food-grade bucket with a tight seal lid.

 

[menoetes]

I buy my malt in bulk liquid form, 15kg containers for $69 from national homebrew (site sponsor). That's $4.60 a kilo but when you take into account that you need to use about 50% more in liquid form rather than dry it comes out at $6.90 for the equivalent of 1kg of dry malt extract. However it comes in its own plastic growler container and postage is very reasonable, $10.60 delivered to me in Brisbane.