Simple Things to Avoid When Kit Brewing –A.K.A. Don’t Listen to the Can!

[Mike]

Simple Things to Avoid When Kit Brewing –A.K.A. Don’t Listen to the Can!

Hey guys, long time watcher first time poster. This is a resource I've been working on for a while - a do/don't resource for first time kit brewers. After starting on terrible kit beers for about a year and a half it dawned on me that the advice given on the cans is the exact opposite of what you should be doing. Many kit brewers brew terrible beers when in fact, they could brew good beers with very little extra effort, just a different method. I don't brew with kits any more but this should help those that do, and much of the advice transfers to well to extract/partial and AG brews. I've put this up as a resource on the Chch homebrew club facebook, as well as the UC brew club, and am after any advice  Most of the background info comes from Brewing Network podcasts, Jamil/JP etc, but some of it is based on personal experience and inference. If anyone has any suggestions/corrections post here, but keep it simple for first time brewers (ie yeast starters etc are probably a bit advanced/an extra step of effort for most first time kit brewers).

-         AVOID LAGER AND CERVESA KITS! As a general rule, the lighter the beer, the harder it is to hide mistakes in the brewing process. Cheap lager kits (think Coopers/Black Rock Lager) have nothing much in the way of flavour (like most commercial lagers!) and even when brewed well can come out thin. Regardless of your personal drinking habits, you are better to go for fuller flavour kits: amber, brown, real and dark ales, porters, stouts and IPAs. Anything but a lager. (JR - Realbeer): When it comes to kits fresh is best.  Get them as new as possible and if it is past its use by date then use it for making starters or throw it away.

 

-         CLEAN THEN SANITISE EVERYTHING that’s not being boiled. What Brewtec sells as ‘No Rinse Sanitiser’ is actually a cleaner, Sodium Percarbonate. You need to soak/store your fermenter/bottles/anything-that-needs-sanitation in this solution, then sanitise with a sanitiser. Sodium Metabisulphite is the most common, but it need to dry to be effective. Iodophor or Starsan are ideal, and can be purchased from brewshop.co.nz. The four most important things to remember about good brewing are: Cleaning, Sanitation, Sanitation, Sanitation!

 

-         DON’T USE A WHOLE KILO OF TABLE SUGAR/DEXTROSE in the boil or in the fermenter. Too much sugar (along with hot fermentation, see below) is the primary cause of acetaldehyde (a cidery ‘bad homebrew’ off-flavour) and diacetyl. The yeast will eat the sugar first and will not properly ferment the malt. You are better off to ditch the sugar and just brew a half batch (11.5L) with kit only, or stretch it to 15L with 150g sugar. If you want to make 23L, use two kits or get some malt extract!  (JR - Realbeer): Try a 1.5kg kit with 500g light DME and 500g brew enhancer for 18.9L. 2 kits can come out too bitter because you got twice the bittering hops. 

 

-         BOIL YOUR KIT (ARGUABLE) in as much water as you can for at least 15mins to sterilise and dissolve the malt extract properly, in a large pot with a decent amount of headspace. Pour the extract in slowly and stir vigorously to prevent burning.  Be careful as the extract will make the pot boil over very easily. Cool the pot in the sink and top up the fermenter with cold water (preferably pre-boiled and cooled or bottled bulk 10L spring water). You want the wort to be cold (17-18C) when you pitch the yeast. If you want to skip this step to save time you can. (From JR- Realbeer:) I would boil the dry malt extract in as much water as you can (and possibly any hops you want to add) then add you actual kit at flame out.  That gives it enough heat to dissolve and kill 99.??% of bugs while not messing with any late hops that were added in the kit making process.

 

-         DON’T USE KIT YEAST! Fermentis S-04 (English Ale) and US-05 (American Ale) are industry standard brewing yeasts that can be purchased for +/- $5 from Bin Inn and Your Shout. They are miles ahead of the yeast that tends to come with kits, giving cleaner flavours, better fermentation and more compacted yeast cake in the bottom of the fermenter and bottles. US-05 is my personal favourite and is used for most of 8 Wired’s beers now. Spend the $5 = better beer.

 

-         DON’T PITCH DRY YEAST STRAIGHT INTO THE FERMENTER!  Pitching dry kills about half of your yeast cells. If you’re only using a 5 gram kit yeast pack this means you will underpitch and the yeast will struggle to start fermenting quickly = possible infection, stuck fermentation and bad beer. Always rehydrate your yeast 20 mins before pitching in boiled, cooled water (20-30C – cool in the sink). This is not as essential if you buy 11.5g Fermentis yeast packs separately, but still very worthwhile. Healthy yeast = better beer.

 

-         DON’T FERMENT OVER 21C! The can often says to ferment between 22-28C, with a higher temp giving a ‘faster ferment’. Fast is BAD. You actually need to ferment ale yeasts between 17-19C. Don’t bother using a heat pad if your beer is in this range, just leave it! Your beer will be better for it. In fact in most situations (apart from May-June-July) you usually want to cool your fermenter down to 18C. The cooler and more stable the fermentation, the cleaner the beer. You want to avoid spikes and drops in temperature, so sitting it in a large bucket filled with cold water in an insulated area (center of the house, broken chest freezer) is ideal. Better still, you can wrap the fermenter in a wet towel and let it wick up the water in the bottom of the bucket, the evaporation with knock a few degrees off the fermentation temperature. If it gets really hot, use a fan. 

 

-         DON’T STOP FERMENTING AFTER A WEEK! Yeast needs time to reabsorb the nasty by-products of fermentation, if you bottle after a week (or rack to secondary) you will remove the yeast from the wort and it will not be able to re-absorb off-flavour precursors. As a general rule, always stay in the primary fermentor for at least 2 weeks, 2 1/2 to 3 weeks if you can. A 4 week fermentation will not hurt the beer and will actually help clear and improve it. If you have a spare fridge, a 2-4 day crash cool to fridge temps (1-5C) before bottling will clear the beer still more. Secondary fermentation is not usually necessary and you risk oxidisation and contamination in transfer. Keep it simple and free up your fermenters for other brews.

 

-         DON’T DRINK AFTER TWO WEEKS IN THE BOTTLE! Your beer needs 3-4 weeks to properly carbonate and condition. Be patient. Keep the bottles in a warm place (hot water cupboard) if you can. The beer will continue to improve with time (hoppy flavours and aromas will start to drop off after a few months, however). Fridge for 24 hrs to better settle the beer, then decant slowly and steadily into a jug, leaving the yeast and about 1 cm of beer at the bottom.

[David R]

As a noob who is still learning lots but rapidly progressing, I'd certainly agree that not using kit yeast (and rehydrating before pitching), and fermenting at a consistant 18-19C are the two biggest things that have improved my beer, aside from ditching the kits completely and using extract/grains with a full boil!

I was't aware about the 'No Rinse Sanitiser' not actually being a sanitiser though, guess I've been lucky so far!! Will have to get some Starsan asap.

[Mike]

Percarbonate will sanitise given enough contact time, but I think that is like +24hours, so it is not really suitable as a rinse-and-go, maybe someone can correct me? Percarbonate + Starsan is ideal though, can't go wrong!

[David R]

and I certainly haven't been giving it that long!! So you'd recommend soaking in Percarbonate for a while and the using the starsan after? From what I read in the How To Brew book [pulled it out last night after reading this] the starsan stuff sounds good, a spray bottle of it would be very handy to have while brewing and bottling.

[Mike]

Yea I store my fermenters in percarbonate for weeks. For cleaning 1 tablespoon per 5L in bottom of fermenter with warm water, then fill with cold water. For storage you can go about half that but full strength has no detrimental effects. Rinse what you are cleaning first, then you can reuse the percarbonate solution by pouring it in another bucket for cleaning bottles/kettle/whatever.

[Hutch]

A 3% Hydrogen Peroxide solution requires a 1 hour contact time to sterilise a surface. Sodium Percarbonate is equivalent to a 27.5% Hydrogen Peroxide solution, so 3% is approximately 100g/L of Sodium Percarbonate. Sodium Percarbonate solution will probably be more effective due to the presence of Sodium Carbonate which lowers the solution PH. 

I use Sodium Percarbonate mostly as a cleaner, but I don't bother re-sterilising anything except the fermenting vessel.

[Mike]

Cheers for that, so at standard dilution rates (10g/1 tbsp per L) it will take 10-15 hours? And yea, it is only essential to sterilise anything that touches the wort post boil - so fermenter is the main thing. Cross contamination is more of a problem with new brewers I think (people taking a hydrometer reading of cooled wort and then re-adding the sample back to the wort etc).

[Hutch]

I couldn't find any data lower than a 1% solution, but all the studies are from the healthcare sector, where the standards are a bit higher than ours... If you're buying plain unscented nappy sanitiser (effectively 100% Sodium Percarbonate), sterilising with 50g/L still works out pretty cheap, not as cheap as things like chlorine bleach, but you don't have to worry about rinsing. Very low concentrations of Hydrogen Peroxide does pretty much nothing to yeast and Sodium Carbonate will affect wort Ph, but so little should be present it shouldn't make a difference. However things like Sodium Metabisulphate and Peracetic Acid are much more effective no-rinse santisers.

[Ralph]

Homebrad napisan (or even the real thing) is more like 25% Sod. Percarbonate and no where near 100%. The other 75% is a mix of a number of things... I sure as shit would be rinsing my gear after using any napisan type mix in it!!

Pure Sodium Percarbonate I would be a lot less worried about rinsing.

As for dose rates I think it depends on how much "organic soiling" there is. If you are looking to sterilise you first have to get rid of the organic bits. Basically most sterilisers work by killing the organic stuff, so if there are bits of stuck malt, yeast or hops the sanitiser will go to town on this bit. If there is more organics than sanitiser in solution you will not get your container sterile. This is why most people recommend a wash with something that will remove the organic dirt and then a sanitising step. I think even Sod Percarb will run out of effectiveness is there is too much soiling as it will use up all the hydrogen peroxide in solution...

So. Wash with something effective, then sterilise with something effective is the golden way to do it.

[Mike]

Hutch: Metabisulphite is actually a pretty poor anti-microbial agent, and needs to dry completely for the sulphur dioxide to work. It's also pretty nasty in dried form compared to percarbonate, starsan and iodophor (obviously liquids, but nowhere near as nasty as metabisulphite, which can cause problems for asthmatics and will blow your head off if you sniff it). Therefore I'd recommend iodophor and star-san...or on the cheap/newbie styles the two step technique mentioned above - overnight percarbonate soak, then metabisulphite. Of course, as Ralph says the two-step is still necessary with the better sanitisers.

[Mike]

Just a few stats re: doing double kit batches, in most cases the bitterness is not over the top, as can be seen by the numbers. However Mangrove jacks kits are designed to be quite flavourful, so it is best to just use a can of light malt extract ($15) when brewing these.  

I also did a few experiments, including a kit Epic Pale ale with 2x Lion Lagers, 450g of light crystal and the Hop schedule from the CYBI episode here: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/can-you-brew-recipe-epic-pale-ale-1... Brewtoad recipe here: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/easy-epic-pale-ale-kit-beer-cheapo-... I've brewed and tasted EPA clones several times, extract and all grain, and can honestly say this one was one of the nicest. Needs a bit more OG but dropped volume to 20-21L brings it in line.

Here are the actual stats of the kits from the manufacturers. 

Kit stats from Lion - One kit with dextrose in 23L vs estimated two kits in 23L (actual IBUs in doubled kits will be less due to more malt = higher final gravity, +/- 1.012 vs 1.008 kit +dextrose).

Lion Lager – IBU 16/SRM 3  2x Lager= IBU 32/SRM 6 - (NZPA/APA/Pilsner range)

Lion Draught – IBU 17/SRM 6.5 2x Draught= IBU 17/SRM 13 (Amber range)

Lion Dark – IBU 16/SRM 25  With lager kit= IBU 32/SRM 27

Lion Real Ale – IBU 21/SRM 12.5 With lager kit= IBU 37/SRM 15.5 (ESB range)

Kit stats from Coopers - One kit with dextrose in 23L vs two kits in 23L (actual IBUs in doubled kits will be less).

Coopers Lager - IBU 17-21/SRM 2.5      2x each IBU 17-21/SRM 5

Coopers Draught - IBU - 18-23/SRM 3.6    2x each IBU 36-46/SRM 7.2

Coopers Real Ale - IBU 23-30/SRM 6.4

Coopers Bitter - IBU 25-33.70/SRM 11

Coopers Dark Ale - IBU 27-32/SRM 18

Coopers Stout - IBU 32-38/SRM 50

Coopers Mexican Cerveza IBU 15-16 SRM 2

Coopers Australian Pale IBU 17-19 SRM 4 

[Ralph]

Random post to bring this topic back to the top of the forum...

[Mike]

Cheers man, thanks for suggesting to me to post this here, pity I can't edit the original post now! The current version is on the Chch Homebrew Club page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/494714937209424/ ...I've made lots of small tweaks but here are some of the recent additions.

Some people have found 2x 1.7kg lager kits a little bitter for their tastes, I find when dryhopped with 80g or so of US style hops they do an APA quite nicely. But if you don't want to use dry hops and are after a more malty beer you might be better off with something like a Nut brown ale kit and a can of light malt extract...in this case I would DEFINITELY recommend buying refrigerated dry yeast (Preferably US-05 - or MJ M44 West Coast - as they are very clean fermenting. You can use S-04 if you like for a more 'british' taste but I have found it can ferment too fast and throw off a lot of esters).

AVOID LAGER AND CERVESA KITS IF YOU MUST USE SUGAR/DEXTROSE! As a general rule, the lighter the beer, the harder it is to hide mistakes in the brewing process. Lager kits (think Coopers/Black Rock Lager) have nothing much in the way of flavour (like most commercial lagers!) and even when brewed well with dextrose can come out thin. Regardless of your personal drinking habits, you are better to go for fuller flavour kits: amber, brown, real and dark ales, porters, stouts and IPAs, with a can of extract (or a lager kit if total IBUs are less than 35). Conversely, 2x lager kits at 20L can make an excellent 5% session APA base if dryhopped with about 80gs of cascade or similar...concentration makes a difference! (JR - Realbeer): When it comes to kits fresh is best.  Get them as new as possible and if it is past its use by date then use it for making starters or throw it away.

 

Oli Drake: Open your hops and sniff - if mostly cardboard, old cheese and sweet lawn clippings they're probably no good. Get them from a homebrew supplier who refrigerates them. Sniff the yeast packet, if it has a sharp smell of old marmite, and this smell persists after rehydration, maybe decide not to pitch this nastiness into the beer. My advice to kit brewers is smell and taste everything you can, if in doubt, buy fresh yeast/hops from a good home brew shop! (One that stores yeast and hops in the fridge/freezer). Unfortunately there's not much you can do if the malt extract is oxidised...Not sure how they can justify the BBE date, the only way in my mind that this product would still be at it's best is if you kept the whole kit close to zero degrees, even then the yeast would have pretty low viability....

Kit stats from Mangrove Jacks - stats are for 1 kit in 23L. 10g yeast pack per kit, Mangrove Jacks Craft Series strains - catered to style.

 

Craft Series brewery pouches (the big ones, 2.2 kg - these are based on added dextrose/brew enhancer)

 

English Session Ale - IBU 18-24/Colour: Chestnut Brown/ABV 3.6% - Newcastle Dark Ale yeast 10g

India Pale Ale - IBU 35-45/Colour: Golden/ABV 4.7% - British Ale yeast 10g

Irish Stout - IBU 40-50/Colour: Black/ABV 4.9% - British Ale yeast 10g

London Bitter - IBU 28-36/Colour: Orange Brown/ABV 4.2% - Burton Union yeast 10g

Nut Brown Ale - IBU 26-34/Colour: Mahogany/ABV 4.1% - Newcastle Dark Ale yeast 10g

Pilsner - IBU 28-36/Colour: Golden/ABV 4.7% - Workhorse yeast 10g

Premium Lager - IBU 18-24/Colour: Pale Gold/ABV 4.4% - Workhorse yeast 10g

Bavarian Wheat - IBU 12-18/Colour: Hazy Gold/ABV 4.7% - Bavarian Wheat yeast 10g

Kit stats from Brewtec - One 1.5kg kit with dextrose in 23L vs two kits in 23L (Measure as at 5 Brix/1.020 OG per kit, actual IBUs in doubled kits will be less). 5g yeast pack per kit. Not recommended due to smaller size.

 

Brewtec Lager                     IBU 16/max  SRM 4

Brewtec Premium Draught     IBU  21/SRM 12.5

Brewtec Brown Drought         IBU 10/SRM 9

Brewtec Classic Dark Ale       IBU 20/SRM 20