Clydebrewer
Well-Known Member
I started brewing beer kits about four months ago with no previous experience at all.
I've brewed the beers listed below in the order shown below:
Young's American Pale Ale
Young's American Amber Ale
Cooper's Ginger Beer + Ginger and chilli
Festival Old Suffolk Strong Ale
Festival Bonfire Toffee Stout
Coopers Stout +
Cooper's Mexican Cerveza
The Young's kits should be reaching optimum condition about now but were drunk long ago....
At the start I bought a Cooper's starter kit with the bucket and Krausen collar set up but swapped out the Coopers can for the APA.
This seems to have been a great way to start as the kit is easy to use, contained everything I needed and the APA was awesome from day one.
I decided to try different kits and manufacturers to figure out what worked for me and what I liked. Under suggestion by my LHBS I pimped the Ginger beer kit with the addition of fresh ginger and two Jalapeño chillies boiled in the initial water and then added in a hop bag, this stuff was fiery and went down well with everyone who tried it.
The next two Festival kits I did by the book. The Old Suffolk is good but is improving with age.
The Bonfire Toffee Stout I've managed to leave alone so far and its now 3 weeks conditioning so may get tried this weekend.
My foray into tweaking with the Ginger beer sparked the next stage which I've read about so many times in this forum where people discover that kits are only the beginning.
I've added to the Stout and Cerveza kits and now have two FV's.
This looks like its taking over my garage and my life.
I'm trying to get enough in production to allow something to get to full condition before it's all gone.
If I can be any help to new brewers I will through this fantastic forum which has given me so much information so far, Cheers.
I've brewed the beers listed below in the order shown below:
Young's American Pale Ale
Young's American Amber Ale
Cooper's Ginger Beer + Ginger and chilli
Festival Old Suffolk Strong Ale
Festival Bonfire Toffee Stout
Coopers Stout +
Cooper's Mexican Cerveza
The Young's kits should be reaching optimum condition about now but were drunk long ago....
At the start I bought a Cooper's starter kit with the bucket and Krausen collar set up but swapped out the Coopers can for the APA.
This seems to have been a great way to start as the kit is easy to use, contained everything I needed and the APA was awesome from day one.
I decided to try different kits and manufacturers to figure out what worked for me and what I liked. Under suggestion by my LHBS I pimped the Ginger beer kit with the addition of fresh ginger and two Jalapeño chillies boiled in the initial water and then added in a hop bag, this stuff was fiery and went down well with everyone who tried it.
The next two Festival kits I did by the book. The Old Suffolk is good but is improving with age.
The Bonfire Toffee Stout I've managed to leave alone so far and its now 3 weeks conditioning so may get tried this weekend.
My foray into tweaking with the Ginger beer sparked the next stage which I've read about so many times in this forum where people discover that kits are only the beginning.
I've added to the Stout and Cerveza kits and now have two FV's.
This looks like its taking over my garage and my life.
I'm trying to get enough in production to allow something to get to full condition before it's all gone.
If I can be any help to new brewers I will through this fantastic forum which has given me so much information so far, Cheers.
