Two instructions on the beer kit can you can safely ignore

Rules are meant to be broken and so are the beer making instructions that you will find on a beer kit.

Think of an ordinary cake recipe.

If you follow its instructions to the letter, you'd likely get an OK tasting cake.

But a cake making expert will see that same cake recipe and see room for improvement and change things up and make a great tasting cake.

And it's the same with the instructions that come with an extract beer kit. If you make your beer following the can's instructions, you will simply make beer.

When a beer making expert sees those same instructions, they see opportunity to basically ignore those instructions and apply some tried and true beer making methods instead!

Let's have a look some of the things that standard set of instructions might say something like.

Bottle when the specific gravity is the same after two readings

If you are a first time brewer, you could be forgiven if you were wondering what specific gravity means. It's the reading taken with a hydrometer that demonstrates that alcohol is displacing water. If you have two readings the same a day a part, no more displacement is occurring and thus, fermentation is finished.

Right?

No.

While the yeast may have stopped making alcohol, the yeast is still doing it's job.

It is cleaning up what we will call the 'left overs'. Here's the instructions your beer kit does not give you.

Let your beer 'chill out' in the drum a bit longer.

While the bubbles may have stopped coming out the airlock, some pretty handy chemical reactions are still occurring and they will help make your beer taste even better.

Bottling too early (such as immediately post having two consecutive identical specific gravity readings) deprives your beer of this vital part of the secret to making good beer.

Don't drink your beer after a week, no matter what the instructions say

And here's the second reason to ignore your beer kit's instructions. They often suggest you can drink your beer after a week!

What?

Have you ever actually done this?

I have and I can tell you that a beer that has been conditioned for only a week is the roughest beer to drink around.

What happens when you bottle beer is that a secondary fermentation takes place.

This is when the beer is carbonated for the second time, the difference being, the carbon dioxide is trapped inside the beer bottle. 

While that is happening, the yeast is once again cleaning up the beer for you. Let the beer sit for a minimum of three weeks so that it is at its best for drinking.

So there are two reasons to ignore the beer kit's instructions and they basically come down to time. There is no need to rush your beer making experience. Let the beer sit for a week after fermentation has obviously finished and then let your beer condition even longer than what the instructions suggest. 

You can of course always choose to ignore the advice in my step by step guide to brewing beer!

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11 best brewing tips for beer kits

11 best brewing tips for beer kits in 2020

Beer is beer, and the principles behind making it will never change.

No matter the year, you still want to get the best quality beer you can make with your beer kit and so here’s the best tips and tricks we have to help you make great tasting beer. 

While often seen by many beer snobs as the ‘stupid homes schooled cousin’ of those who make all grain beer, those snobs are simply wrong. You can make great beer with kits. 

This is a great guide for first time novice beer brewers but seasoned pros may find a nugget of gold to help you make better homebrew!

1. You need to run a lean clean machine

You've chosen your beer kit and are ready to begin. The first thing you are going to do is ‘Keep it Clean’. This was the same for 1917 and it will be for 2117. If you are making beer, you gear needs to be cleaned and sanitised.

Your fermenter and the gear you use to prepare your wort must be in a tip top state of

cleanliness. 

Sure, you can get away with not cleaning your beer bottles but you can’t get away without having a clean and sanitised fermenter. Sure, the Vikings who made lager in oak barrels in caves had never heard of using sodium percarbonate but you have and you need to use it to prevent your beer getting infected.

The best part about using sodium percarbonate?

You’ve probably already got some as it’s found in ordinary laundry soak! 

I’ve had brews get infected and I know it was my fault as I did two kit brews and the same time and both got infected. I am a 1000 percent sure if I had of done a proper job of cleaning my gear (including stirring spoons and washing my hands) I would not have ruined 80 bucks worth of malt and hops. That said, don’t stress too much about accidental contamination….

2. Brewing temperature will have a massive effect on your beer

Fermentation is a process that requires just the right kind of temperatures and the right kind of times. Different temperatures suit the differing kinds of beers. A very rough guide is that you should aim to brew lagers between 10-14 degrees, and get those ales done between 18-21 degrees. 

A constant correct temperature is also very important as the yeast can react to a temperature variance in ways that are not good for tasty beer! So when doing your first brews, make sure it can be done in a warmish area and one that's going to keep that temperature.

I often use blankets to ensure that the beer is kept at a fairly even temperature. 

A correct level of headspace will benefit your beer.

3. Be a patient beer brewer

Your wort will take about a week to properly ferment. You can tell when fermentation has finished by taking readings with a hydrometer. When you get two or three consecutive days of the same reading, fermentation is probably complete. 

And if you are properly following the instructions of the beer kit (don’t), you might think it was time to bottle your beer.

It’s not. Wait another week.

While the yeast may have eaten all the sugars, it will move on to other parts of the wort and in doing so it will clean up your beer, helping to remove unwanted products of the fermentation process. The yeast will slowly drop to the bottom of the fermenter thus improving the clarity of your beer. 

4. Hops are like the magical ingredient of beer

If you just used malt and sugar and yeast you would get beer. Add hops and you get BEER! Different hop varieties suit different kinds of beer. After hundreds of years developing beer, there are now some well-established rules of thumb for what kinds of hops brewers should use. This guide to using hops will help you find the hops that’s right for you.

5. Want clearer beer? 

Trying using gelatin as a fining agent. It combines with the 'leftovers' of the beer brewing process and they fall to the bottom of the fermenter thus clearing the beer.

You can add it any time after fermentation and word on the street that it actually works best when the beer is quite cool. A common timing is to add it a couple of days before you intend to bottle your beer.

But just remember gelatin can come from the hoof of a horse, so if you are trying to make a beer suitable for vegans, think again.

6. Change up the yeast?

Making lagers can be a tricky business as they don’t have a strong flavour that can mask problems like a strong stout can.

A way to improve the chances of a successful lager brew, you may want to consider discarding the standard yeast that comes with a beer kit you might want to order the lager yeast known as WL833 - it's a popular yeast for lager brewing and is proven amongst the beer brewing industry.

7. The sweet taste of success

When bottling your beer, ensure that you use the right amount of sugar. If you use too much, you will no doubt suffer the pain of beer gushers. These happen when you open the beer and whoosh! It blasts out like a volcano going all over the place. 

Another handy trick to reduce the chance of a gusher beer is to have chilled your beer for at least a couple of hours before you intend to drink it.

I have personally experimented this with a troublesome batch and cooling your beer before you consume it definitely reduces the chances to too fizzy beer.

Using carbonation drops is a handy way to make sure you get the right amount of sugar in the bottles.

8. Oxygen exposure can impede the bottle conditioning of your beer

Too much oxygen in the bottle can give the beer a quality that you may not want in your beer. Too much oxygen can allow any organisms left in the beer to flourish, giving an unwanted vinegar-like quality. While not a massive risk, you can reduce the change of it by using a beer bottling wand.

By adding it to the tap of your beer you are able to easily fill your beer without causing too much oxygenation. Make sure you firmly install the wand as I’ve had personal experience where I haven’t and spilt beer all over my garden shed floor when the damn thing fell out….

Bottling wands also make bottling easier and faster as the valve at the bottom means you do not need to turn the tap on and off for each bottle when filling. 

If you don’t use a wand, we suggest you fill your bottles by angling them so the beer pours down the side of the bottle to reduce agitation.

9. Use a beer enhancer

There’s no easier way to making better beer kit beer. Beer enhancers are made of basic ingredients, being a mix of fermentable and non-fermentable. They usually contain a mix of dextrose and maltodextrin. 

Such beer enhancers work by the dextrose being the food for the yeast and are thus used in the fermentation process. Some beer enhancers also have hops added to match the kind of beer style so if you are ordering from an online store, check that the particular enhancer's hops matches the kind of beer you are trying to make. 

If you want a good creamy mouth feel, beer enhancers that have a high percentage of malt or DME will do the trick. This is because you are adding more ‘unfermentables’ in your beer.

The more malt you add, the 'creamier' your beer will be. This is in the sense that your beer will be more viscous, making it feel thicker in your mouth

10. Storage temperature is also important 

Once you have bottled your beer, that’s not the end of the matter. It's often best to initially store your beer in a warm place. This will encourage secondary fermentation to commence (this is sometimes described as bottle conditioning). The ideal temperature range is between approx 18 - 25°C for 5 to 7 days. After that period, you should leave them in a much cooler place with a temperature range between approx 8 - 12°C. 

You should then leave the beer for a total minimum of three weeks since bottling date before some well-deserved tasting.

11. Note what you did down

Keeping a record of what you have been brewing will give you an insight into what has worked, what didn’t and what your personal preferences are.

12. pH Levels

If you've become a bit of a pro, you might want to consider using a ph meter to test your beer for accurate and optimum pH levels.

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↠ An experiment with a lager kit, riwaka hops and a bottle of Golden Syrup

I sniff around a couple of homebrew Facebook groups and every time a beginner pops up asking for a really simple beer recipe for using a kit, this dude pops up says something like:

"Mate, I've had some amazing brews with a lager, riwaka hops and golden syrup!"

I was like, hmmm. 

Would this really work?

I prodded the guy a little bit and he then added that he also would use a beer enhancer. 

Which makes sense as enhancers really do wonders for your beer's performance - both in body, taste and mouth feel. 

So, I put this idea to the test. 

I used the following ingredients for what I'm going to call the:

Golden Riwaka Lager recipe 

·      Black Rock's Lager Kit and standard yeast

·      One whole packet of Riwaka hops

·      One 300 ml bottle of golden syrup

·      One beer enhancer which contained dextrose and DME.

To clarify, golden syrup is treacle, not molasses, nor maple syrup. 

I prepared the brew as per standard beer practices - cleaning and sanitizing the fermenting drum with sodiumpercarbonate, using boiling water and making sure my stirring spoon was nice and clean.

I made my wort and then I dryhopped the whole packet of Riwaka hops pellets. Gosh, they smelled like beer heaven. At a pinch you could probably substitute some Saaz hops as Riwaka was born out of the Saaz variety but the point of this exercise is to try what the random dude on social media suggested...

I then wrapped the fermenter in some old sheets and left it in my man shed for a week. 

The first day I went in to check that fermentation was occurring, my nostrils were swamped with that delicious hops smell that had just enveloped the whole room and I could hear the airlock bubbling away quite happily. 

Winning. 

So, after one week the bubbling had died down to a slow occasional blip, so I decided to bottle. 

I've recently been doing a bit of a cheat when it comes to bottling my beer. Despite recommending it elsewhere on this site, I've become lazy in a sense. What I do after each bottle has been emptied of its liquid gold, I rinse it out at the kitchen bench, adding in some washing up soap and using the bottle brush as need be. 

The bottle then gets a spin in the dishwasher. My theory is the heat from the dishwasher kills any nasty germs that are lurking. Be clear though, it's not likely much hot water is getting into the bottles to help clean them, it's the heat that I am after. 

I then store the washed bottles in a 50-litre washing basket with a sheet over the top and use as required.

If I start to notice a few bottles tasting a little off, I know that it's time to do a proper sanitization where the bottles are soaked in sodium percarbonate for a couple of hours at a minimum. 

Phew, we wandered off the track there a bit!

Where was I?

Ah yes, bottling.

I batch primed the brew with 80 grams of sugar, capped the bottles and put them back in the shed for some alone time in the dark.

Now, I know that the seasonal warmth coming into summer is not really the ideal time for making a lager. Anyways, this patient brewer will wait and see how my Golden Riwaka Lager pans out.

-

So, it’s been a couple of weeks and I’ve had a chance to sample the batch.

I placed a bottle in the fridge overnight and sampled it with my dinner. 

Holy shit, I made a damn good beer. That random dude on social media has stumbled on an amazing combination of ingredients.

It's a little fruity as the hops are quite strong. It has a good mouthfeel for a kit lager. It feels fresh on the mouth and as a real summer beer vibe. 

It looks like the 80 grams of sugar was just right as the beer has a good amount of bubbles that continue to rise up in the glass. 

Given its nature, this beer is definitely best served cold. 

Would I brew this again? 

Most definitely but I would reduce the hop level, a whole bag of Riwaka felt like overkill but that's down to personal taste. The choice is yours.


---

I had another go along the same lines as the above. 

I was given a Cooper's Lager kit at Christmas - so I gave it a ferment - I used adjuncts of 300 mls of Golden Syrup and 200 mls of maple syrup in it as the fermentables. 

I didn't add any extra malt such as DME or beer enhancer.

I did add a small hand full of Green Bullet hops. 

So I brewed, fermented for a week and bottled. At week 2 of conditioning, I sampled my wares with a little bit of trepidation - sure enough, this was the driest beer I have ever made. It had no mouth feel - the distinct hops taste was there but it was massively overpowered by the dry taste of the beer. 

So I would consider this experiment a failure, however, like inventor Thomas Edison making the light bulb and finding 1000 ways to NOT make one, this process has confirmed that when making beer from a kit, you need to stick to the tried and true - and use something like a dry malt extract to ensure a good mouth feel and a brew that's not dominated by the sugars you added. 

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The top beer kit ideas to give for Christmas presents in 2022

The best beer kit ideas for Christmas presents in 2022

It was my wife who gave me the push I needed to get into home brewing beers.

I'd been saying for at least a year I was going to do it and even started collecting and cleaning the labels off beer bottles but I never made that jump. And then on Christmas Day, my lovely lady presented me with a Mangrove Jacks home brew kit and I was away!

If you are considering buying your partner / husband / best friend a beer kit for Christmas, we've got some great beer kit gift ideas for you!

There's a lot of gear out there but don't fall into the trap of going overboard and spending too much money. If your gift recipient is new to brewing, only the most simple and cheap brewing kit is required.

I was a slightly nervous first-time brewer. I read up all I could about brewing on websites, I read the instructions on the can. I read them 5 times. I called a mate who had done it few times. I read some more.

And I didn't need to as it is so easy to make beer!

I just did it and it was bloody fun. Because all you need is a simple drum, your equipment and some clean hands! But maybe follow this brewing advice too.

What beer kits do make ideal Christmas presents?

Let's start with the kit I was given for Christmas, the Mangrove Jack's beer kit.

This was an awesome present. It came with everything I needed to make my first batch of beer with. All I need to supply was the bottles. The first thing I realised was just how much beer you can make with it.

23 litres of beer is a lot!

The kit came with the malt, cleaners, brew enhancer, a hydrometer (for working out when fermentation was complete) and some easy to follow instructions.

The beer I made was pretty good all things considered - I just wish I had let it bottle condition a little more!

This gift was perfect for me as a home brewer, I personally recommend it as a great starter kit.

Mr. Beer Premium Gold Edition Homebrewing Craft Beer Making Kit

This is a handy kit as it has all you need to start brewing – the brewing extract, fermenter, bottles and ingredients. It even has brewing carbonation drops to make the first bottling experience a breeze. Mr Beer, the company that makes this kit, describes it like this:


“Mr Beer’s Premium Gold Edition Complete Homebrewing Kit provides aspiring brewers with our patented brewing equipment and high-quality ingredients that simplify the homebrewing process. 

Our patented brewing system includes a compact, lightweight fermenter that is modelled after the design of professional brewing equipment. Eleven 25 oz. reusable and shatterproof bottles that are specially designed for carbonating the beer.

We also include a can of brewing extract - a concentrated form of all natural malted barley and hops - produced in a state-of-the-art facility by Australia’s oldest family owned brewery, as well as No-Rinse Cleanser and unique Carbonation Drops to simplify the sanitization and carbonation process.”

So what are you waiting for? Order it now so you get it in time for Christmas!

The beauty of these kinds of beer kits is that they are so easy to clean as well - a rinse with a hose and then a splash of hot water with a cloth or non scratching brush and you are done - ready for the next batch to be made!

Not convinced?

Here's one more awesome brewing kit that would make the best Christmas present:

You could try the Brooklyn Brew Shop Beer Making Kit, Everyday IPA.

You could say it's a little bit fancier than the Mr Beers kit as it involves a slightly different way of making the beer.

The Brooklyn kit involves you making an oaty mash on your stove or gas burner and doing a little bit of boiling.

The Brooklyn Brew shops described it's product like this:

"If you can make oatmeal, you can make beer. Brooklyn Brew Shop's apartment friendly Beer Making Kits make it easy to bring brewing out of the garage and into the kitchen using only fresh, whole ingredients and traditional methods used in homes and breweries for centuries.

By brewing with the same ingredients (cracked barley, hops, spices, and yeast) that the best craft breweries in the world use, making high quality and complex beers becomes possible on the stove top in your very own kitchen, big or small."

Which is all very nice, but is it any good for a Christmas present? Here's what a user of the kit said in their review on Amazon:

If you "enjoy REAL beer and are actually INTERESTED in the process of brewing and how it works, this kit is an excellent way to jump right in by DOING it. They tell you WHAT to do, you do it, and you get very good beer out of it. "

So no complaints then. An easy choice for a Xmas present!

If beer is not the best idea, why not giving a gift of a cider kit?

If your partner is not really a beer drinking, they could well be into making cider! Good drinking ciders are quite the popular product these days.

They seem to have lost that ‘thing’ about them and are more accepted as something to drink in a bar. Which seems strange as cider has been around for centuries!

Our friends Brookyln Brew do a handy cider kit and so does Mr Beer.

If your partner is pretty experienced, take it to the next level with a ph Meter for testing the brew.

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