Getting More Out Of Your Brewing

We received this email from one of our customers today and thought the information would be useful for potential brewers

Hi, I have just completed my first home brew kit. It was a Youngs bitter kit. I am now interested on doing a second batch but I want to get a bit more involved in the process rather than tipping a tin of beer syrup in, adding sugar and waiting. I don't know how possible it is to work with the raw ingredients (hops and malts etc) at home rather than using the tins in the kits. Would you have information on this and suggestions of what I would need to get a bit more involved in the process.

We're delighted to hear you've enjoyed your first brew. To answer your question there are three ways you can get more involved in the brewing process.

Kit Tweaking

You can improve the flavour and aroma of the kit by adding a hopped tea or dry hopping the wort. Body can be improved by replacing brewing sugar with spraymalt whilst replacing the yeast can also effect the flavour. To make a hopped tea, simply take a sterilised cafetiere add 10-15g of your favourite hops and pour a kettle full of boiling water over them. Steep for 10 minutes then plunge and add to the wort.

Dry hopping is simply adding 10-15g of hops into the beer after the initial vigorous fermentation. Many brewers just chuck them in loose but we prefer to use a sterilised stocking and weigh it down with a couple of stones or marbles. If you use a bottling bucket for secondary fermentation, you can also add the hop stocking to that.

Extract Brewing

Extract is a bit of a half way house approach between kit brewing and all grain brewing. You'll need to invest in a pretty big stock pot - at least 30 litres if you want to make a 23L brew. You add water and boil, using hops to flavour and steeping grains to add colour and flavour.

All Grain Brewing

This is "proper" brewing where you extract the sugars directly from the malt, boil it and add hops for bittering and flavour/aroma and then rapidly chill it to get the wort down to yeast pitching temperature. Do do this you'll need a Boiler/Hot Liquor tank, mash tun and immersion chiller. Although they are not on the website yet, we can supply all of these items for you. Some brewers have made their own equipment. The main advantages of All Grain brewing are that the beer tastes a lot better, is ready to drink sooner and, (not including equipment) is cheaper to brew per pint.You also have control over what you are brewing and, as long as you keep notes, you'll be able to brew it time and again with pretty consistent results.

On the minus side, there is a not insignificant investment in equipment, the brewing process takes 6 hours or so (although there is a lot of downtime where you could be doing something else). It is not absolutely necessary but we would recommend investing in an all grain brewing book and some recipe software like Beer Smith.

I hope this helps, if you live near the shop (Ashford, Kent) arrange a time to pop in and check out one of our demonstrations in the New Year.