Geordie, Bitter Review

[Drayman151]

Hi all I am going to do this kit this week if I reduce the water to 35 pints will this be okay and do I need to do anything else like reduce the fermenting sugar. Please let me know thanks. Your help is good on this. :hat: :thumb:

 

[Tean Buns]

Hi all I am going to do this kit this week if I reduce the water to 35 pints will this be okay and do I need to do anything else like reduce the fermenting sugar. Please let me know thanks. Your help is good on this. :hat: :thumb:

Go for it, just short brew it to 35 pints and keep everything else the same ... you should have no problems at all. Let us know how your OG comes out. I often short brew ... it helps with managing a pressure barrel. :drink:

 

[noddyman]

Tried a bottle of the brew at the weekend. As my friend said, "there's nothing wrong with that". It looks very thin bit the taste is ok. 27 days in the bottle and the beer shows promise. :

 

[Tean Buns]

I guess this one doesn't really count as a true kit because I have done a bosh up with it, experimenting to help out a friend who can not get into grain brewing for reasons of space and dosh but would like to drink a decent pint all the same.

I steeped 1.4 kg of Crystal malt, strained and added the "juice" to the bucket. Straining 1.4 kg of crystal malt using basic kitchen equipment is NOT easy. I also steeped 25 grams of Aramis hops, strained and added the "juice" to the bucket. Otherwise, the rest of the kit was done following the kit & kilo principle.

12 days in the primary and then a further three weeks in the secondary before bottling ... and the brew has just been bottled. The first quick snifter is surprisingly good ... I mean surprisingly good, probably better than a two can kit even ... but that is to be confirmed. Results in another couple of weeks when the bottles have conditioned up ... I can't wait
:drink:

Update ... first taster ... WOW this is surpisingly good, no doubt going to get better, it has only been in the bottle for two weeks but it is nice. What I am getting is something along the lines of a very well hopped sweet brown ale ... could that be called a Porter ? For a kit bosh-up cum extract brew ... this is REALLY good. It is even better than all of the kits that I have done so far, including the more expensive ones. A winner. I could sit down and drink this one all night long ... To bring it into lines with a porter, just some black malt or chocolate malt might take it somewhere ... looks like I will be brewing another to find out.
:drunk:

 

[Tean Buns]

Here's the review ... the beer has been out of primary for seven weeks and bottled for four. It's not too bad but the bosh-up is not entirely successful. When drinking the beer, you can detect the distinct elements of the brew, that is to say the kit and the added hops and malt. The flavours have not married up. One quarter of an hour in the brew-kettle would have sorted that out.

As far as my brew goes ... it's fine, not right, but it does the job and is better, at least from my point of view, than kronenbourg out of a green bottle.

As far as judging the kit goes ... it would be unfair of me to say anything at all regarding the quality of the Geordie kit as it stands...because I have been playing around with it.

Would I get another one ? Key question ... yes, probably, I want to know what it is like straight out of the tin. :drink:

 

[upthepool]

My second brew.

Used the kit + the kit yeast (�£8.63 Tesco sale), 1kg Youngs Beer Enhancer (�£3.75 Tesco sale), topped up with 20l bottled water (Tesco Still, 17p for 2 litres).

SG 1039
FG 1010
abv = 3.8%

2 weeks in fv and bottled using 1/2 tsp per bottle of normal white granulated sugar.

Got 40 bottles, worked out at 38p per bottle (when you take account of bottle tops & sanitisation cost)

Left bottles 18 days at normal room temperature for carbonation and then moved down into the cellar for conditioning.

just tried my first bottle after a total of 32 days in the bottle. It is good, good bitter taste, not thin, decent head retention, and went down lovely.

The notes i've made on this is that the results are really good when just using the kit but I would like to use this in the future as a base and start experimenting with adding hops and speciality grains.

 

[Chappers79]

Hi all,

This is my first ever brew.

I brewed it with 750g brewing sugar, 250g of dark brown sugar and brewed it short to 21 litres. SG was 1034, so I am hoping to get 3.8% abv or so.

Instead of using plain boiling water to mix the wort kit, I boiled up 20g of fuggles and 10g of East Kent goldings pellets for twenty minutes and strained this into the FV.

It's bubbling away nicely at the minute and the plan is to leave it in the FV for 2 weeks and then bottle using bottles primed with the brown sugar.

Looking forward to what will hopefully be a fairly hoppy, brown English bitter with a caramel hint. :drink:

 

[Chappers79]

I had the first taste yesterday when I checked the gravity, and it appears that it will end up being a decent pint.

It's quite malty and very hoppy at the minute which I like. At the minute, the gravity is down to 1006 and the plan is to leave it in the FV until Saturday when I will bottle it. Hopefully the gravity the come down a little more by then.

Cheers, :drink:

 

[upthepool]

I had the first taste yesterday when I checked the gravity, and it appears that it will end up being a decent pint.

It's quite malty and very hoppy at the minute which I like. At the minute, the gravity is down to 1006 and the plan is to leave it in the FV until Saturday when I will bottle it. Hopefully the gravity the come down a little more by then.

Cheers, :drink:

Nice one chappers. 1006 is low, I've not managed below 1010 yet, but i have always used brew enhancer. I'm enjoying my geordie bitter but next time i intend to use the can as a base and add some speciality grains and do a bit of hopping.

 

[Chappers79]

I had the first taste yesterday when I checked the gravity, and it appears that it will end up being a decent pint.

It's quite malty and very hoppy at the minute which I like. At the minute, the gravity is down to 1006 and the plan is to leave it in the FV until Saturday when I will bottle it. Hopefully the gravity the come down a little more by then.

Cheers, :drink:

I bottled this on Saturday, and managed to get 43 500ml bottles from the FV, so my calculation of a 21 litre brew was off

My plan was to prime the bottles with dark brown sugar, but the sugar kept clogging the funnel so I used brewing sugar in the end.

Looking forward to trying a sample in a few weeks, and then leave it and forget about it until around January.

 

[clibit]

A low final gravity boosts your ABV but makes the beer thinner. You can decide whether you like that when you drink it. If you decide it's too thin, replace some of the sugar with malt extract. And you can add extra to maintain or increase the ABV.