Mangrove Jacks Munich Lager

[K John Brown]

Just when I though I had finished with Kits, I was given this one. Has any one tried it without modifying it? I would like to try it but suspect it may be a "ghost" brew with no body or substance. Thought I would add:

1Kg light malt extract

1 x lager/pilsner grain pack

25g Hersbrucker pellets

Any suggestions welcome. Thanks

[Dougal]

The usual ways to trick up a kit to get the best result are:

-Replace the added sugar with malt. Extract or ideally grain if you're set up for mini-mashing. I'd throw in a wee bit of Carapils too for head retention.

-Throw away the kit yeast and use a decent liquid or dry culture. If you're making an actual lager, use a couple of packs of dry yeast, or a big (4-litre) starter from a liquid culture. Pitch at 8C and ferment at 10C for the cleanest results. If you don't have that kind of temp control then you can always do a pseudo-lager with 1 packet of S-05 fermented at 15C.

I'm a bit confused by what you mean by a grain pack. If it's one of those expensive pre-packed one-kilo things from the homebrew store it may not be enough grain to give you the right gravity. Use a recipe calculator like this to work out how much malt you need to supplement the kit. Liberty, Brewshop, the Brew House or whatever should be able to supply what you need more cheaply.

As for yeast, you can work out exactly how much you need to pitch here. 

[Edmund Barker]

I reckon kit, kilo, hop and use US-05. The right hop additions can make it pretty tasty without having to put too much effort in (why bother, it's just a kit). I reckon a 30 minute boil with some NS. Mind you, I'm a noob, so you might want to take the esteemed advice of Dougal :)

[K John Brown]

Thanks guys. Great to have your input and sorry to be vague with my description. Dougal, the grain pack is 300grms of pale crystal malt. I will need to swot up on the calculators before I can make sense of them. That's the problem being an old fella. It is great that everything is so more advanced since when I last brewed which means that there are some awesome beer flavours now. I will try a partial mash next and try and get more scientific to get better results. Thanks again to you both.