just ordered 2 kits...

Just placed an order with northern brewer.
Ordered their Irish red ale and honey kolsch. Anyone tried either of these kits before?
Any feedback or tips appreciated!

My tips that I would have liked the first time I brewed would be watch the boil the entire time when you start brewing, until you get a feel for how your stove or burner heats and maintains the boil. Also if you are not using an immersion chiller than get a lot of ice for an ice bath. I.E. a store bought bag of ice (or 2). I was dumb enough the first time I brewed that I thought I could chil 3 gallons of wort using 8 ice cube trays and 5-10 small ziploc bags of ice....I was sadly mistaken. I ended up just running water over the sides of the boil kettle and stirring the wort which took around an hour or more.

Thanks for the reply. If if wasn't for this forum I may have tried cooling my first batch the same way. These two will actually be my 6th and 7th extract batch so my general process was not my concern. I was looking for some feedback about these two kits in general since they are my first northern brewer kits. I have done brewers best and Midwest before. Likes/dislikes/tweaks people have used?
Cheers!

Anyone?

I brewed the NB Irish red ale in December. It has a decent flavor but I put too little priming sugar in and it's a little flat. It was my first time brewing and I'm guessing I screwed up on a few points. My advice would be to make sure you're hitting the right temperatures during grain steeping, wort boiling, yeast pitching and fermenting. Then you should be ok. Also, most Kolsch recipes I looked at call for a cooler fermenting temp, like low to mid 50s. People on this forum have suggested keeping the carboy in a container full of water during fermentation so you can add ice as needed to regulate the temp. Good luck!

swissbrew13 said:

Thanks for the reply. If if wasn't for this forum I may have tried cooling my first batch the same way. These two will actually be my 6th and 7th extract batch so my general process was not my concern. I was looking for some feedback about these two kits in general since they are my first northern brewer kits. I have done brewers best and Midwest before. Likes/dislikes/tweaks people have used?
Cheers!

Click to expand...

if you're doing partial boils it's much easier to cool by doing a partial boil and top off with chilled water for the last 2-2.5 gallons which will instantly cool the wort to NEAR pitching temps

Am probably going to brew one of these this weekend. Which should I do first in your opinion?

Kolsch is brewed at ale temperature and then lagered to get the clear, crisp flavor, so it needs time for the lagering. The Irish red will be ready to drink sooner.

^thanks! I'll prob do that first. Or both on same day perhaps...