Making good beers into great beers!
Beer Kits make great beers, and can be made even better with some simple changes to the way you make them. Here’s how you can easily improve any beer kit….
Don't Use Sugar
If you make your beerkit using cane sugar (any form of sucrose – white, brown, demerara, raw etc) it leaves behind a cidery or fruity taste which clashes with the malt flavour. This is not a pure beer taste and is undesirable.
Glucose and Malt are the best ingredients
Instead of sugar you should use Glucose (dextrose) or malt. Both are excellent beer ingredients and will always give you a pure beer taste.
Glucose or malt powder can be used but you need to change the amount you put in the bottles. Also . . . the powders tend to get stuck in the neck of wet bottles. Therefore, to keep the process simple & easy, this is the only time we recommend the use of ordinary sugar
Handy Tip - When you are buying brewing sugars for your beer, always check the list of ingredients. Good quality products will not include sucrose (ordinary sugar).
Specialty Ingredients explained
Brewblends
Brewcraft Brewblends are dry malt blends that will greatly improve basic beer kits. The malt we use is premium quality brewing malt that gives the best results. (Brewing malt gives much better results than confectionary malt as used by others.)
Beer Enhancers
Brewcraft Beer Enhancers are carefully selected additional ingredients hops & premium dry brewing malt that change basic beer kits into special styles of beer.
Hops
Where the recipe specifies additional hops, mix them with a litre of water & cook as directed. You can then add this directly to your brew or strain it & use the liquid only as you prefer.
Straining cuts down the sediment & reduces the effect of the hops slightly. Panty hose material is good for straining.
Hop Emulsion
BREWCRAFT brand HOP OIL EMULSIONS add pure hop flavour & aroma directly to your finished beers without adding bitterness.
There are 6 superb varieties & no cooking, preparation or extra work is required. All you need to do is add drops to the bottles before applying the crown seal. Use half the dose if you are bottling in stubbies.
Yeasts
In some recipes, MUNTONS or SAF yeasts are specified. These yeasts will give you a considerable improvement in the flavour of your beer & you will find the yeast settles very firmly in the bottom of the bottle.
Save the yeast you get with your kits. You can use them to double the yeast dose next time you make a beer with the same yeast. This will improve that beer too.
Fermentation Temperature
· Kit yeasts will ferment between 18° & 30°C. You will get best flavour between 18° & 22°C.
· Muntons Gold (Mun Gold) & SAF yeasts ferment between 10° & 30°C.
· However, for best flavour, keep Saflager between 10° & 18°C. & Mun Gold & Safale between 16° & 23°C.
