masculator002
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I cannot understand why kit brewers try to emulate brewery beers I.E. little creatures pale, james squires amber etc. The only way for a kit brewer to even get close to these truly is by ditching the kit. Kit beers are hopped malt extract, most commercial breweries and manufacturers of kits use pride of ringwood hops, at THEIR set rates to produce something which is going to be brown and bitter. Granted some are browner and more bitter than others but how many of you can tell me exactly how many grams of hops were used to make that can of home brew extract? Granted different yeasts make different flavours appear as do different fermentation times. but you are still relying on coopers, wander or if you are really taking a gamble fosters group with their cascade kits, to give you something which will be consistent (or in the cascade case "uninfected".) Also granted, many of us cannot afford either the time involved, or the setup cost to go to all grain brewing, or have the knowledge of which hops and grains to use. However there is an intermediary which will save some of the labour of all grain and give a much greater amount of control than kit brewing, which takes little more effort than kit brewing.
This is the true world of EXTRACT BREWING.
In your home brew shops you will see near the cans of kit beers UNHOPPED malt extract and dry malt extract, all of which are available in different grades. i.e. light, wheat, amber, dark. you will also see in your supermarket next to the honey an extract called saunders malt extract (I will use this in an example later) and in all decent homebrew shops you will see sachets of hops. These are all you need to produce a beer far and away better than any kit could possibly produce. Plus you will be following the german purity law! For those who don't know it, beer is only to contain malt, hops, yeast and water.
This brings me back a couple of years or more to my first experience of brewing kit beers without using a kit to do it. To my knowledge some of my recipes are still on the website of aussiehomebrewing (this is not a typo it is a site but not this site.) (look it up and say gday to les for me.) Any way back to the topic. I had been brewing kit beers again after taking a few year hyatus due to travelling and such, and was missing the quality and control I had seen with brewing all grain for many a year prior to the aforementioned. Not to mention the fact that I had spent $400 plus on cascade kits brewed with good quality malt extracts, which were good for nothing more than pouring on the garden. (this led to many debates between myself and fosters group during which Garibaldi smallgoods was mentioned more than once.) but to cut a long story short I thought I would search for a decent UNHOPPED malt extract locally available, as the nearest homebrew shop is about 1 to 1 and a quarter hours away, I found SAUNDERS!!!! My first brew with it was a bit of trial and error I had a few different hops which I had been using as additions to kits, and a few good yeasts including us56 now called us 05, and s23 and w34/70, I also had the knowledge of several years of all grain brewing to know roughly how much hops to use in a 19 litre brew (there are reasons for this size brew which I will leave you to discover.) any hows one of my first brews was a light mead ale (Pretty much half saunders malt, half honey, some saaz and some cascade, us 56 yeast 18 litres total volume) and it was kick ass in comparison to any kit beer I have ever produced. I had not tried to emulate anything I had ever tried on the shelf and in all honesty it was better than any beer I had had off the shelf (and even the connoiseurial mates I have consider me more of a connoiseur than they would ever be.) It was all bar as good as brewing all grain, and it had taken about 15 or 20 minutes longer than brewing a kit. The hour spent boiling the hops in a three stage boil allowed sufficient time so that when the hops were ready I had sterilised the fermenter, had the malt extract ready and warmed for pouring, yeast ready for pitching and it was all simple.
I now compare commercial beers as being a cheap/expensive immitation of what I brew. I.E. fat yak or moobrew pale ale was about 3 years behind when I had done some thing very similar but they still weren't quite as good as my APA, what I am trying to say is get out there do a bit of research and brew something of your own because you can brew easliy better than what you can buy, and better than what a kit can give you
This is the true world of EXTRACT BREWING.
In your home brew shops you will see near the cans of kit beers UNHOPPED malt extract and dry malt extract, all of which are available in different grades. i.e. light, wheat, amber, dark. you will also see in your supermarket next to the honey an extract called saunders malt extract (I will use this in an example later) and in all decent homebrew shops you will see sachets of hops. These are all you need to produce a beer far and away better than any kit could possibly produce. Plus you will be following the german purity law! For those who don't know it, beer is only to contain malt, hops, yeast and water.
This brings me back a couple of years or more to my first experience of brewing kit beers without using a kit to do it. To my knowledge some of my recipes are still on the website of aussiehomebrewing (this is not a typo it is a site but not this site.) (look it up and say gday to les for me.) Any way back to the topic. I had been brewing kit beers again after taking a few year hyatus due to travelling and such, and was missing the quality and control I had seen with brewing all grain for many a year prior to the aforementioned. Not to mention the fact that I had spent $400 plus on cascade kits brewed with good quality malt extracts, which were good for nothing more than pouring on the garden. (this led to many debates between myself and fosters group during which Garibaldi smallgoods was mentioned more than once.) but to cut a long story short I thought I would search for a decent UNHOPPED malt extract locally available, as the nearest homebrew shop is about 1 to 1 and a quarter hours away, I found SAUNDERS!!!! My first brew with it was a bit of trial and error I had a few different hops which I had been using as additions to kits, and a few good yeasts including us56 now called us 05, and s23 and w34/70, I also had the knowledge of several years of all grain brewing to know roughly how much hops to use in a 19 litre brew (there are reasons for this size brew which I will leave you to discover.) any hows one of my first brews was a light mead ale (Pretty much half saunders malt, half honey, some saaz and some cascade, us 56 yeast 18 litres total volume) and it was kick ass in comparison to any kit beer I have ever produced. I had not tried to emulate anything I had ever tried on the shelf and in all honesty it was better than any beer I had had off the shelf (and even the connoiseurial mates I have consider me more of a connoiseur than they would ever be.) It was all bar as good as brewing all grain, and it had taken about 15 or 20 minutes longer than brewing a kit. The hour spent boiling the hops in a three stage boil allowed sufficient time so that when the hops were ready I had sterilised the fermenter, had the malt extract ready and warmed for pouring, yeast ready for pitching and it was all simple.
I now compare commercial beers as being a cheap/expensive immitation of what I brew. I.E. fat yak or moobrew pale ale was about 3 years behind when I had done some thing very similar but they still weren't quite as good as my APA, what I am trying to say is get out there do a bit of research and brew something of your own because you can brew easliy better than what you can buy, and better than what a kit can give you
