Montieths Black

[brewnmotion]

Hey,
What would be the closet kit for Montieths black?

[Reviled]

Um, maybe the monteiths one? But they only do 10 litres from memory... Should be a fairly easy beer to clone.

[brewnmotion]

One step at a time - new to this, trying to get the kits right to start with :-) Need to spend more time figuring out how to start from scratch.

[Reviled]

Fair enough mate, have a read of John Palmers how to brew website, some good info on kit brewing on there, and if youre feeling adventurous heaps of info on All Grain brewing...

Kit brewing is fairly easy, dont be daunted by how hard you think it may be, cos guaranteed once you put one down youll be wondering why you didnt do this before :o)

Any questions, just ask, heaps of people on here willing to help ou!

[brewnmotion]

Fantastic - thanks for the info matey. Serious want to get stuck into this, first one I put down was pretty damn murky - definitely looking to improve on that.

Cheers

[James P]

Hi Brewnmotion, first thing that is usually suggested is don't use the kit yeast and control the temperature.

You will learn over time what characteristics you get from fermentation temperatures ranging between 16 and 28C. If you like Black, then you will want to find a yeast that will provide you with the right characteristics, and ferment it out.

What do you mean by murky? Murky when poured into a glass, or murky in the fermenter?

[JoKing]

A big tip is to not use the yeast you get with the homebrew kit. If you want a beer that is like Monteiths Black, get 2 Macs Dark homebrew kits and a packet of Safale us-05 yeast from a homebrew shop.

Follow the direcions on the kit to a tee - disregarding the fermentation temperature that they recommend. You'll want to carry you fermentation out with your fermenter in a tub of water covered with a wet towel draped over it to keep it cool. 18-20 degrees is what you are after.

Once fermentation has ceased (2 weeks from the start generally) the brew will be ready to bottle.

As Reviled says, you'll get heaps of help on this website.

Cheers.

[Reviled]

And, once you want to start looking into All Grain brewing, a cheap and easy way of getting into it is Brewing in a Bag, found here... www.biabrewer.info

Plug finished :oP lol

[James P]

We're going to have to remove your stripes one day Reviled.....

[denimglen]

Yeah, listen to that Joking guy.

Also, I really recommend not adding any large amounts of refined sugars to your beers at this point, use two cans of kit or replace the weight called for of refined sugar with liquid malt extract (unhopped)

www.howtobrew.com, read it, lots, it's awesome.

And try and get away from the kit beers and into boiled extract beers ASAP, you won't regret it.

[brewnmotion]

Brilliant guys - thanks for taking the time to suggest all of this. I've got some reading to do obviously.

On the murky front, it came out of the bottle a little worse for ware - but hasn't put me off. Mate of mine said it was "drinkable" - probably a bit like a wheat beer to be honest. I'll make sure I use the site to it's fullest.

Cheers once again.

[Mike Neilson]

Wheat? im sure that there were claims on this site of montieths black use a wheat yeast? but I could be wrong?

[denimglen]

Ok, first off, I don't mean to sound like a twat, but do you know the correct way to pour a homebrew or bottle conditioned beer? This can change the drinking experience quite a bit. Just in case - leave the bottle upright for at least 24hours then pour gently and slowly into glass leaving last ten mm of juice in the bottle. This contains the yeast that's dropped to the bottom. Nothing wrong with drinking it though, its actually quite good for you.

Pouring the sediment into the glass will make the beer cloudy or murky and also give it that yeast flavour sometimes associated with wheat/weizen/wit.

Another thing that may give it a 'wheat beer' flavour is the high temperatures we've had at the moment - can stress the yeast and they will throw some banana or clove esters - desirable in wheats but not so much in other beers. Usually these clean up a bit with some aging.