Best VALUE beer kit.. Opinions?

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Oct 24, 2014
Messages
540
Reaction score
52
Hi Lads
I'm getting my next order listed and on it was Woodforde's Headcracker. "Rich, strong Suffolk ale, ABV 7 %.+"
Lovely. Just my style..
But then I realized that it only makes 24 pints. At a shade under £20 that makes it 83p a pint, likely ABV 7+ %.. Still terrific value over pub prices, and no doubt MUCH nicer, but with that reduced output it would need to be some kind of ultra delicious to make me choose it over Evil Dog at £25 for a full 40 pints (62p per pint), estimated ABV 7.1%...
Which got me thinking. There are threads about favourite kits, cheapest kits, and probably worst kits. But what about best value?
E.g.: I have a John Bull IPA on the go. £11.50 ish most places. I added 1kg young's enhancer and another 1kg dextrose and LME. Total cost approx £18.00, estimated ABV aoround 7%.. £7.00 cheaper than Evil Dog and If I knew what I was doing I could add 30g additional hops for another quid or so.
In a few weeks I may be in a position to answer my own Q - at least partially - but meantime I'd be very interested to hear other opinions.
Not best kit, not cheapest kit, not strongest kit (although ABV is a factor) but best value kit. If you know of one that costs a tenner, brews out to, say, only a modest 5% ABV but tastes lovely with the addition of 1.5kg ordinary Tate&Lyle, then that's a definite contender.
I'm in London so Wilco's isn't much of an option for me (postage), but please nominate them if you think one of their kits is worthy.
 
I've done the wilko kits many times, the Mexican cerveza is great lager style kit at £10 (7.50 when 25% sale on). The hoppy copper is also a great kit, I brew short to 20l with mdsm+brewing sugar, same price. The john bull IPA is great also IMO, Tesco has on sale sometimes @9.50.
I don't up the abv on mine as I prefer them at 4-5% as I usually sink a few:drunk:
 
It depends, from your OP you sound like you want to ramp up the abv..

I guess it is personal, but I prefer to make them around the 5% make some higher some lower.

the One can kits seem to be around £10-13 (I'm excluding offers and deals) and its the fermentables which will probably determine the value.. I prefer DME over sugar but do mix the two so.. But you could just bung a bag of table sugar in and brew 40 pints for £12-14
 
It's true I tend to prefer a stronger pint but it's not the main criterion, e.g. offered the choice between a Hobgoblin or a Special Brew I'd choose the first every time.
 
BruinTuns - I know your pretty new to the brewing game but I reckon you should move on to AG as soon as possible. For a tight wad like yourself :tongue: the monetary benefits are a no-brainer, I can easy make a 23L brew for a tenner. Your in London right? If your anywhere near Brixton it's means you wont even have to pay postage on your ingredients (London Brew Lab is based there). Cost was the main factor that I moved on to AG as I am a) skint and b) tight

But you'll also have to complete control of your ABV%. and therefore 'value'. I recently made a 23L batch of Batemans Dark Mild. Very nice too. Problem is that there such a nice session beer I'm drinking them twice as fast as I would do a 4%+ beer :lol: so I'm going back to the 4%+ brews as it's better value. I've nearly drank em all now. Anyway, something to think about :thumb:
 
I got a Simply Pale Ale kit for £8 on offer, got some beer enhancer -1kg for £4 ,some pale DME for £4 and got it up to 6% ABV. 44 bottles for £16 = 36p per bottle.

Best bit is it was ace after a couple of weeks in bottles, and kept getting better.

Bought 4 more of the kits I was so chuffed. Dry hopping them and trying different yeasts.

Still on offer at Homebrew Online (but no longer the beer enhancer):

http://www.home-brew-online.com/beer-kits-c1/pale-ale-kit-p195
 
"..as I am a) skint and b) tight.."
Man after my own heart!! :thumb:
Yes, AG is definitely something I'll consider at some stage and you pre-empted a future question I was going to ask, i.e. Kits Vs AG cost effectiveness. My main isssue with AG would be time, but I will look into it.

Hopping_Mad, thanks, that's exactly the dort of answer I was hoping for. That one is definitely on my 'to do' list.

But remember lads, this isn't just about price or ABV alone. If you know of a two can kit that costs an absolute packet but brews the best beer in the world (in your opinion) and is therefore worth twice its enormous price then please share..
 
"My main isssue with AG would be time, but I will look into it.

Time is the biggest downside of AG. It takes me about 51/2 - 6 hours to do a 23L brew. But this is down from about 8 hours if you can beleive it.

I was getting a bit fed up with a whole day brewing so started following the theory of marginal gains - trying to shave a bit a of time off each step of the brewing process. The biggest two time savers were mashing - down from 90 to 40 mins (I came across a rather heretical/revolutionary thread on another forum that stated you can mash in 10 mins but I'm not brave enough to try 10 mins so tried cutting my mash time in half and it worked) and cooling the boiled wort. Down from 2hours (I don't have a wort chiller and didnt want to shell out on yet another bit of kit) to 1 hour
 
I am all for a cheap ale. I tried the Youngs range first but when I found the Geordie range was under £7 in Morrisons I moved to Geordie. I tried them all and added extra sugar so around the 5 ~ 6% ABV.

I tried the range and the Scottish Export suited my taste best. So 12 x 2 litre PET bottles per brew likely best value using 2 kg of sugar.

But I will admit temperature is a big factor. Too hot and off flavours and until this week the temperature was a bit hit and miss. Only just moved to brewing in fridge with a temperature controller.

I have a friend who uses raw ingredients who tells me mine is a rotten brew. But I also think his is rotten I expect a brew to clear.

Time in the bottle is also important in the main I am looking at 6 months but others are looking at weeks. As I write this I am drinking a Geordie Mild bottled 22 Jan 2014 missed out the start date. It is to me rather nice but nothing like a pub mild. Again less than £7 a can.

The same brew I have done many Scottish Exports both Youngs and Geordie tastes slightly diffrent each time I am sure down to temperature so until I got the temperature controller it was a little hit and miss. But a brew just 2 months in bottle tastes different to one 6 months in the bottle and after 6 months very few are considered as not best. Even fewer as bad.

My only real failure was a lager which I decided I would use a lager yeast and brew at a low temperature. I still drank it but no where near as good as the one done at 20 deg C. It was the death of lager brewing for me.

My daughter buys me the special from time to time be it a Winter warmer or other and I enjoy them but I think my taste buds have got trained into liking the Scottish Export and I find myself selecting it over all the others.
 
"..as I am a) skint and b) tight.."
Man after my own heart!! :thumb:
Yes, AG is definitely something I'll consider at some stage and you pre-empted a future question I was going to ask, i.e. Kits Vs AG cost effectiveness. My main isssue with AG would be time, but I will look into it.

Hopping_Mad, thanks, that's exactly the dort of answer I was hoping for. That one is definitely on my 'to do' list.

But remember lads, this isn't just about price or ABV alone. If you know of a two can kit that costs an absolute packet but brews the best beer in the world (in your opinion) and is therefore worth twice its enormous price then please share..
Two can kit-Youngs American Amber Ale,oh my,where to start,as good as many "craft" beers for 2quid a bottle and dead easy to brew.
AG definitely ain't for me,6 hours free time is in another life I'm afraid.
Cheers
 
Hi ericmark, is that 2kg ordinary table sugar or dextrose?
And were your temps fluctuating during the fermentation period do you think?
I only ask because everything I've read suggests that most yeasts can comfortably tolerate a range of temperatures, just not highs and lows during the same fermentation..

pms67, what size bottles at £2 each? If you mean 500ml then that kit is loads cheaper here: https://www.hopandgrape.co.uk/youngs-american-amber-ale.html
And thanks for the tip, it's on my 'highly recommended' list.

EDIT:
Oh I see, you mean the craft beers it's as good as are £2 a bottle?
 
I have never used anything other than standard sugar think it C6H12O6 from memory at school. I have where I can steered clear from cane sugar because think I should support home industry and two the idea of buying something which has been shipped in a oil powered ship half way around the world just does not sit right when there is an alternative.

Also I steer away from anything labeled fair trade as I can see anything fair in paying one farmer more than another for the same product.

I would love to learn more about how a kit beer is made. Making beer from scratch we don't add sugar so why do we add sugar to a concentrate? I am assuming something in the making of the concentrate removes sugars which we then replace?

Kit said add 1kg but other kits said add 1.5kg so I experimented and took it up to 3kg which tasted rather harsh so dropped back down to 2kg which means 5 ~ 6 % which is not bad.

But some beers can't take as much sugar as others Yorkshire bitter does not like the extra sugar but Scottish Export seems to work well with it.

As to temperature I read at start temperature is very important and one can lift the temperature latter in the process. However until now I had no way to regulate I would put body warmers over the fermentor and if really cold use a heating tile it was a demo for underfloor heating around 18W. But east to forget and then one gets the off flavors. Never killed the yeast but have found the brew at 26 degrees when I forgot to switch off the heat.
 
I would love to learn more about how a kit beer is made. Making beer from scratch we don't add sugar so why do we add sugar to a concentrate? I am assuming something in the making of the concentrate removes sugars which we then replace?

I don't know the exact processes that go into making a kit but a kit is a can (or two cans) of super concentrated wort which is then diluted by the home brewer. I do something similar when i do Maxi-Biab. I don't have a pot big enough to a full boil for 23L so using my 20L pot I make a concentrated wort that i then dilute in the FV up to 23L.

What the manufacturer does with a 1 can kit is to give you enough wort that if you were to dilute it to the full 23L it would make a very low, 1-2 ABV% beer (recently another forum member purposely did somthing like this to make a low ABV% beer). The home brewer then adds fermentables to bring it up to the correct ABV%. Hop are of course added to the concentrated wort.

With a two can kit, you have similar concentrated wort but the manufacturer gives you enough wort so you don't need to add any extra fermentables thus the difference in price between a one can kit and a two can kit.

There is no "removing of sugar" which a home brewer then replaces

Incidently commercial brewers commonly use what is know as invert sugar in there beer. It helps add ABV% and colour and is of course cheaper than getting all the colour and/or ABV% from grains alone. A kit brewer can do something similar with a 1 can kit as you can choose to make up your brew with cheapo sugar alone, or more expensive DME/LME or brew enhancer (which is just a mix of dextrose and DME.)
 
Intersesting points about kits. It would be useful to know exactly what's in them and whether, style for style, they're all the same concentration.
E.g.: Evil Dog costs £25 for 40 pints but contains everything you need, including two hop 'tea bags'. That's almost exactly double the price of a 1.8kg single can John Bull IPA kit, two of which would give you 3.6kg of concentrate.
Yet Evil Dog weighs in at a whopping 4.7kg. What might account for the extra 1kg over the 2 X John Bulls? Extra fermentables? Is E D really stronger and/or fuller bodied than John Bull IPA would be if made doubled up with two cans?
I realize I'm over simplifying but it's an interesting thought given that, pint for pint, two can kits tend to cost - and weigh - on average roughly twice as much as single can kits.
I'm actually currently brewing Evil Dog and John Bull, to which (JB) I added 2 kg of fermentables making a total of 3.8kg.(Ikg enhancer, 750g dextrose, 250g Malt Extract).
In case anyone else is interested I'll post my verdict on the results back here when they're eventually ready to drink.
 
Did you just use the supplied yeast for the JB?
Is it a 6g packet,i always worry the yeast will struggle with a lot of fermentables.
The Festival and Youngs kits come with large packets and im assuming the Bulldog does too although ive never brewed one.
Cheers
 
Did you just use the supplied yeast for the JB?
Is it a 6g packet,i always worry the yeast will struggle with a lot of fermentables.
The Festival and Youngs kits come with large packets and im assuming the Bulldog does too although ive never brewed one.
Cheers

Very good question! I asked eactly the same one in the JB review thread. http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18570&page=4
More experienced member Robert_ assured me that the supplied sachet should cope fine. As that was what he used (I more or less followed his lead) I just went ahead. I've just weighed the unopened sachet (I have a second kit) and it's 7.3g so yes, once out the foil sachet I'd gues it's exactly 6g .
Took a hydro reading yesterday (10 days into fermntation) and it was down to1010 from OG 1060 so I assume the yeast has coped with it.

P.S. I'm not 100% sure but now you mention it I think the Evil Dog did come with a larger quantity of yeast..
 
Back
Top