2 KITS ON THE WAY

[grimmy]

HI EVERYONE. just bought 2 kits from the homebrew company. the first is a coppers heritage larger and ive swapped the sugar for light spray malt 1 kg. the next is a muntons dockland porter whitch ive also swapped the suger with some dark spray malt 1 kg. this is only my second attempt at home brewing and ive not used spraymalt yet so wish me luck.
BTW can I swap the priming sugar for something else?
im 40 years old and ive not been this excited since I was a kid :lol:
will keep u all posted :

 

[Kegbelly]

Haha you and me both, just started brewing myself on my 2nd batch now. Enjoy the fruits of your labour :

 

[LeithR]

@grimmy,
Yes, you can substitute priming sugar for other things e.g. honey, syrup, brown sugar etc... Something I'm going to try shortly is Lidl's Coffee syrups (for flavouring coffee but lets see how it works in a Cider) I have Caramel and Vanila.

The only thing to be aware of is how much to use - generally more than sugar as they have less sweetness content and more water or other non-fermentables.

John Palmers book "How to Brew" gives you all the details, its pretty much a "bible" in the home brewing community. Here is a link to the online version - its an early draft, my paper copy is version 3 of this book so I recommend you buy the book (Amazon) but its a handy online reference.
http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html

Hope this helps and best of luck brewing. :

 

[stevander74]

Hi Grimmy.
It's been a while since I brewed kits but I always had good results with coopers kits and I used coopers brew enhancer (spraymalt) in place of sugar so I think you should get a nice pint from that one, never used muntons kits so I cant comment but I hope it turns out good.
When I was brewing kits I used to buy yeast (safeale s-04 usually) and use it instead of the kit yeast which can sometimes give poor results.
Also you can use carbonation drops instead of priming with sugar, never used them myself so I don't know how effective they are but they're supposed to make life easier.

 

[grimmy]

thx for the advice all. will def look at John Palmers book "How to Brew" and gets some ideas from there. and I will go down to my local homebrew place "spitting feathers" and ask about different yeasts I can use. I think after this brew I will move on to the next lvl using grains and hops and whatever else u guys use. v exciting
just one question what is the life expectancy of your average home brewer? should I write my will out now :lol: