Yet Another new brewer with questions!

[Stunned Monkey]

Hi All,

It's 5 days now since I bottled my first Coopers kit, and while I'm damned sure I'm going to drink every last drop, I'm also pretty sure it won't be what I really like - it's watery, a bit low on alcohol, and not a lot of flavour (though the bitterness is nice - is the "English Bitter" kit).

My favourite ale bar none, is Legless Rambler from the Beachy Head micro-brewery which just happens to be about 150 yards from my front door, and the Tiger Inn in East Dean is I belive the only pub to have it on the pumps. I'll be leaving the area soon so I decided is was time to start up my own little operation (was tickled by aleman's reference to a "nanobrewery" being an engineer!)

I really enjoy a strongly flavoured and bitter ale, <5% ABV and not too dark. The trouble is that i have no idea how to go about creating that in my little 5 gal tub.

At this point in time I'm solely interested in beefing up a kit brew. Does anyone have any suggestions? mix it up using a hop tea?

Martin

 

[BigYin]

Try picking a kit maybe a bit closer to your desires - have a good chat with your local homebrew shop if you can - you can either get a kit with a hop bag included, or you can get your own hops of choice, take a few litres of the mixed up kit, boil it up with the hops for maybe 30 mins (ideally get a muslin hops bag to save you needing to strain out the hops - although you can pour iot back in through a seive instead) , cool, and return to the fermenter (watch it's all then cool enough before pitching the yeast :thumb: )

Good luck, and let us all know how you get on :mrgreen:

 

[Stunned Monkey]

Hmmm... nobody's local enough to know my favourite pint

I'm leaning towards an all-malt kit: Woodforde's Nelson's Revenge for example.

The one frustration with this home-brewing lark is you find out in a months' time what would have made it perfect :lol:

 

[jampot]

How about Muntons smugglers premium ale

http://www.muntons.com/homebeer/countri ... gglers.htm

 

[luckyeddie]

The Nelson's Revenge is a decent kit, as is Nog.

Keep on brewing. There are many kits out there to try and then there's extract brewing - and, of course, 'The Dark Side'. I reckon being a beer aficionado you will soon turn to the black arts - then you will be brewing what you want to drink as opposed to what others want to sell you.

 

[Waywood]

I have not been a big fan of beer kits - even the all malt ones. They do have more body, but still retain a distinct 'homebrew' aroma and slightly 'soapy' taste. I asked similar questions on another forum and was recommended the Brupack's Micro-brewery range and advised to use either Nottingham or Saf-ale 04 yeast. I followed the advanced instructions contained in the kit and used recovered Nottingham yeast. The kit included an additional hop bag, which I used but think would have been sufficient for my taste without.

I matured for two weeks in a secondary fermenter under airlock after 7 days in the bin. I then left for three weeks in the bottle.

First impression was good - the beer had more body than most including the Woodfordes and other Munton's kits I have tried. However, as the beer has agedin the bottle it has improved. The 'soapy' taste I referred has virtually gone and I consider it the best to date and will now try others.

I have concluded that letting the beer mature in the secondary fermenter and leaving for a pro-longed period once in the bottle are key to getting satisfaction.

 

[Stunned Monkey]

Thanks - I've actually moved to a brewpaks kit with some LSM added and some extra hopping. Currently wondering when my primary fermentation will stop, and why it smells of bananas (see other thread).