Brewday!!!

[LarryF]

Morning all, I'll be bottling AG2 today, and then working my way through my stock of kits. I was a little bit over enthusiastic during the last Tesco and other sales and I currently have five kits to work my way through. I have Simply Stout and Yorkshire Bitter, John Bull IPA and Best Bitter and lastly a Wilko Sweet Newkie Brown. I've got Beer enhancer for them all and I'll be adding 50g of honey and a hop tea, 30g boiled for 20 mins and then tea and hop bag added to the FV. I've got Saaz, Hallertau and Summer hops but I may have to mix and match a bit to make up the amounts and buy some more in the near future. As much as I'm itching to go galloping off to the dark side I have to work through these kits before I do. Saying that I can't complain about brewing kits, I've enjoyed brewing them all and I've certainly enjoyed drinking the beer I've brewed. Kit brewing is a great way to get into HB'ing and I've learned a lot over the 14 months I've been brewing kits but I now want to move onto starting from scratch with grain. I like the idea of having control over every ingredient in my beer and gauging what tweaks do and don't do for me. For my first half dozen AG's I want to concentrate on my technique and work on my efficiency and the best way to manage myy late addition hops, I'm liking what MQ's been saying about a separate hop tea and the adding the hops to the FV, this always worked well for me in my kit brewing. I think I will go back to do the odd kit now and again maybe with a partial mash maybe for nostalgic reasons. One thing I will say is that with a good kit bought in a sale you can bottle and get a next brew on in 4,5 hours and end up with a very nice beer paying no more than �£12-14. Right, enough waffling, waffling doesn't get them bottles washed, if you're not brewing today, I hope it's not too long until you are and if you are brewing today may the Beer Gods smile on you.

 

[Dutto]

Enjoy!! :thumb: :thumb:

 

[Covrich]

I think I will go back to do the odd kit now and again maybe with a partial mash maybe for nostalgic reasons. .

Everyone is different, but I said the same thing... I never have, maybe its because I enjoy the process and doing it, the hobby part and I also enjoy the finished product a lot better. But also getting the flavours and styles how I want and making that from bottom up.. Getting into yeasts aswell for various styles its just a much bigger world and your brewing world is your oyster.

Not an anti kit person, I did a few kits which we pretty good infact and for new HBers they are a great way for people to get in to them and you can still push the evelope with these. But I tried a few kit brews from my dad and FIL they were mostly John Bull and coopers if I was honest there just wan't any comparison.. Some were decent enough but others you would know they were home brew.. In fact If I do ever go back and do a kit I will unlikley go for John Bull kits!! My Dad is doing a festival IPA kit which I will be interesting in trying when done.

 

[johnnyboy1965]

I believe it should be mandatory to do a few kits before progressing. It gets you used to sanitizing and thinking about the whole proceedure of brewing.