Youngs Harvest Bitter review

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calumscott

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My first ever brew!

A one can kit which says to brew it with a kilo of sugar - which I duly did.

In truth, the resultant pint is, well, OK really. It looks like beer, it smells like beer, it tastes like beer and it'll set you back about 23p a pint.

It's a bit thin and it does have just a hint of "beer kit twang" to it but honestly for a cheap session beer it's fine.

I've still got three bottles hanging around in storage - it'll be interesting to see how it has developed over the intervening months...

I also think that it would prove to be a whole lot better brewed with DME rather than sugar - would address the thinness issue for a start.

If you're not a bitter-snob and just want a cheap batch of session beer, this'll do the trick.
 
Yesterday was a momentous occasion.

I raided the "let's put a few bottles away for a good long time" stash including a bottle of this.

After 5 months in the bottle this has been transformed! The beer kit twang is all but gone and it is now a perfectly decent bitter (quite bitter in fact but none the worse for it). It is still thin but given it was brewed just with dextrose as the extra fermentibles that's no surprise. The head was *much* better and the carb stayed in the beer better too.

So, I'm left thinking that if one were in the market for a mega-cheap quick fermenting bitter for a full on drinking session a good few months down the line, barbeque, party etc. where you need session beer for the masses, this is where this kit will fit. Brew up loads of it, bottle it, store it, forget about it and plan a party! :party: :party:
 
calumscott said:
Yesterday was a momentous occasion.

I raided the "let's put a few bottles away for a good long time" stash including a bottle of this.

After 5 months in the bottle this has been transformed! The beer kit twang is all but gone and it is now a perfectly decent bitter (quite bitter in fact but none the worse for it). It is still thin but given it was brewed just with dextrose as the extra fermentibles that's no surprise. The head was *much* better and the carb stayed in the beer better too.

So, I'm left thinking that if one were in the market for a mega-cheap quick fermenting bitter for a full on drinking session a good few months down the line, barbeque, party etc. where you need session beer for the masses, this is where this kit will fit. Brew up loads of it, bottle it, store it, forget about it and plan a party! :party: :party:
Bought a couple of Young's kits online at Tesco.
I went for the mild and Yorkshire bitter kits.
Anyone tried them?
 
I've brewed them both and mild is really nice done with 750g or white sugar and 500g of dermarera, the York bitter is much the same but I made a bit of an **** of that one, so I suppose it could have been better, I'm drinking a youngs bitter the now and Callum is right that after ageing well it's a lovely drink especially for being so cheap, I must say though their stout is not great at all, infact the first one I did I got a bit excited and rushed in to it and after I added the water all the way up to 40 pint mark I realised it was a 30 pint kit but that was probably the best tasting one out of all the youngs stouts I've done, maybe just my tastes though
 
Put the mild into a cornie this afternoon it'd been stuck at 1016 for a few days.
I put 1kg of brewing sugar nod 250g of dark spray malt.
OG 1043- SG 1016 so comes out at 3.6% but hopefully it's got plenty of taste.
Put 1L into pet bottle to condition with 5g of extra dark brown sugar, next to a few of the rescued Coopers stout re-priming, and its practically the same colour. The dark spray malt has made it look like a stout but not as deep in flavour.
 
calumscott said:
My first ever brew!

A one can kit which says to brew it with a kilo of sugar - which I duly did.

In truth, the resultant pint is, well, OK really. It looks like beer, it smells like beer, it tastes like beer and it'll set you back about 23p a pint.

It's a bit thin and it does have just a hint of "beer kit twang" to it but honestly for a cheap session beer it's fine.

I've still got three bottles hanging around in storage - it'll be interesting to see how it has developed over the intervening months...

I also think that it would prove to be a whole lot better brewed with DME rather than sugar - would address the thinness issue for a start.

If you're not a bitter-snob and just want a cheap batch of session beer, this'll do the trick.

I too tried this as my first brew ever! It was a bit bland to start with but after a couple it started to grow on me. 17 pints from the barrel to date and counting.

Woodfordes Nog has been in the FV for 30 minutes, so am looking forward to bottling that one hopefully. Cheers. :cheers:
 
Note to seasoned kit brewers always give the destructions a quick squint. I got the youngs harvest yorkshire bitter and surprisingly when you read them it tells you to use 1.5kg of sugar whereas the normal bitter is only 1kg. Nearly caught me out that time lol
 
I was looking for something to brew short, 30 pints to be exact, so I thought I give this a bash.

Instructions are very optimistic with the times. We'll see.
 
i did my yorkshire kit in two ways i split the kit did one half as normal but dry hopped it for a week then kegged mid june. its a darker copper colour with a slight sweetness, a little bitter. going down very easy as i type this :drink:

and the second half of the kit brewed it to 5L but didnt add any sugar ( bottled first week july) a bit heavy going but a nice strong pint
 
After a few years of wine making and having come by a free 40l fermenter I had a go at this as my first ever beer kit.

I may be a pleb but I rather enjoyed it. Our church men's group all sampled it (jug served from a bucket - classy!) and it received a universal thumbs up. For a first go, even the wife was impressed. As we are about to do an extension (I am referring to the planned utility as my 'brew room' ;) ) and there will be ensuing chaos, for her to agree to losing space to fermenting vessels is a big deal. She must have liked it.

Anyway, have progressed to trying out a Woodfordes Wherry kit from Wilko's as they were on sale...
 
endecay said:
I may be a pleb but I rather enjoyed it.
Yes I did too. It was my first brew and i'm a newbie. It is not a strong one by any means, but once I got the taste it was great. Good luck with the Wherry. I did Woodefordes a Nog as my second brew and I still have 10 or so bottles left. I'm not a massive fan of it but will keep these to see how they are at the 6-7 month mark.
 
i picked up 2 more of these in the last tesco sale. got them for free as i had a £6 money off voucher,

have done one with 1kg of wheat dme and a wheat yeast they are in kegs now will be another month before i give them a try and the other was done to 20Lish with no sugar (1.026) for a low alc version thats in my pb with 30g of hops and 20g of mixed dried peel. plan to bottle and mini keg next week. i even used bottled water on both as there was no cost to the kits
 
Just cracked my first bottle of this that I did for £6. £2.24 (£2.74 with a voucher) from Tesco's for the kit plus £4 for beer enhancer. Brewed to 18l with S-04 trub rescued from another brew and stored unwashed in the fridge for ~6 weeks. See http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=48811
It's really, really nice (for the price). Never going to win any awards, but as a standard bitter I'm really pleased. Delicate hops and slight biscuity malt. Praying for more £2.74 kits now so that I can play around with hops etc.
 
Funny enough I tried my first pint of this last night. Also picked up in the sale. Brewed to 20L with 1kg brewing sugar and 500g light spray malt. It's been in the bottle about a month. Well impressed it had lots of flavour seemed to have a nutty quality ( but I was watching the worlds end at the time so that might have influenced my thinking ) looking forward to supping the rest over the coming months. Still got another of these and will look forward to putting it on as well. :cheers:
 
Put this one on 8/2/15.
1x youngs harvest bitter 1.5kg
1x youngs beer enhancer 1kg.
250g sugar
brewed to 21ltr using tap water.
Bought recently in the Tesco sale £8 kit, £2.75 enhancer. I usually use bottled 17p asda water but didn't get time to pick some up, hope it turns out ok with tap stuff.
SG1042 currently at 1010 but will leave another 6 days in my aquarium heated trub.18deg.
A budget kit but will let you know how it turns out! Not many reviews on this one.
 
Has anyone tried a Youngs Harvest Bitter brewed very short and without any additional sugars/enhancements or hops? As a trial I was thinking of buying a can in the Tesco sale which is now on again, and then brewing short to 11 litres which should give me an OG of about 1040 according to the Brewers Friend calculator, but am a bit wary that the hops may be too much since I would be basically more than doubling their intended concentration.
 
Has anyone tried a Youngs Harvest Bitter brewed very short and without any additional sugars/enhancements or hops? As a trial I was thinking of buying a can in the Tesco sale which is now on again, and then brewing short to 11 litres which should give me an OG of about 1040 according to the Brewers Friend calculator, but am a bit wary that the hops may be too much since I would be basically more than doubling their intended concentration.

I have doubled 1.5kg kits up several times and they are not hopped particularly much, even on the bitterring side. My suggestion would be to do 2 of these to 24L by adding a hop tea or dry hop addition after the first 2-3 day initial ferment has died down.
 
I have doubled 1.5kg kits up several times and they are not hopped particularly much, even on the bittering side. My suggestion would be to do 2 of these to 24L by adding a hop tea or dry hop addition after the first 2-3 day initial ferment has died down.
Slid
Thanks for that. I normally dry hop my brews and add these in a weighted bag about five days before bottling when the fermentation has virtually finished. I have some First Gold hops which I would use in this case. Any suggestions on hop quantity say based on your 24 litre brew.
Thanks
 
Slid
Thanks for that. I normally dry hop my brews and add these in a weighted bag about five days before bottling when the fermentation has virtually finished. I have some First Gold hops which I would use in this case. Any suggestions on hop quantity say based on your 24 litre brew.
Thanks

20-30g maybe? I am doing fairly lightly hopped brews by todays standards and no doubt you can find advice on adding 5x these quantities and using more American styles.

At the mo, I am happy with my "English" interpretations.

5 days for dry hopping is about right and adding after fermenting is basically complete is a good idea for 2 reasons.

Firstly, the hops have more chance of being submerged and secondly, the aromatic hop oils don't just get blown away by CO2.

I like First Gold, also.
 
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