How about getting more info in the instructions.

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kh54s10

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I am calling here for all the ingredient suppliers to add more information to the instructions for their recipes. A little more information about temperatures, sanitation and fermentation times and options would go a long way to reducing the "is my beer ruined" threads on all these forums.

The worst seem to be - to ferment for 5-7 days secondary for 7 days and bottle for 7 days. It seems to be rare that this comes out well. Just to sell more kits????

I have to say that I had a slight problem on my first brew. I let my Irish Red Ale get too warm for a day. I caught the temperature problem myself and corrected it, then asked for my options on how to proceed. The consensus was to ferment to the longer times listed and let it bottle condition longer. It turned out very good.
 
I think most of the "good" homebrew stores have excellent instructions and I have no complaints with them. I buy from austinhomebrew.com, northernbrewer.com, midwestsupplies.com (not too often), and brewmasterswarehouse.com.

When I was extract brewing, I especially liked the kits from austinhomebrew and northernbrewer for their excellent instructions and fresh kits. Even the Brewer's Best kits I did back then had good instructions.
 
Can & kilo instructions are bad. Kit instructions from companies like Austin Homebrew, More Beer and Williams have great instructions. Unfortunately, people tend to start with the former kits.
 
I have bought all my kits so far from Northern Brewer and their instructions are among the best that I have seen, online mostly.

That said, I think they can go much further in describing proper fermentation temperatures and the benefits on not going by the minimum fermentation times.

Not to mention anything about airlock bubbling or lack thereof and the use of gravity readings.

I haven't tried other kits because I reuse my yeast and the others often don't give the option of getting the kit without yeast. I will try one soon when I find one with a new yeast I wish to try.
 
Instructions are just that, how to brew the beer.
Think of it as your the cook and the instructions are a recipe.
How did you become a cook? By cooking and learning and reading and or going to school.
If you want more info such as benefits of temperature and what happens at fermentation, your looking at puchasing a book or online resourse for homebrewing beer. No amount of instructions can cover everything that your going to run into.
Research and learning is all part of homebrewing, not just boiling and cleaning.
Good Luck.
Stay thirsty my friend.
 
Instructions are just that, how to brew the beer.
Think of it as your the cook and the instructions are a recipe.
How did you become a cook? By cooking and learning and reading and or going to school.
If you want more info such as benefits of temperature and what happens at fermentation, your looking at puchasing a book or online resourse for homebrewing beer. No amount of instructions can cover everything that your going to run into.
Research and learning is all part of homebrewing, not just boiling and cleaning.
Good Luck.
Stay thirsty my friend.

Yes but the big ones are temperature control during fermentation and waiting for final gravity to be reached. This is something not well covered and oh so important.

And to a lesser extent most instructions say 5-7 days primary, 1-2 weeks secondary and 1-2 weeks bottling. I have had a couple that didn't finish fermenting for 12 and 15 days!
 
I use midwest and they will include a CD of instructions for free with your order. About 30 minutes, I found it pretty helpful. They also have a fAQ section that covers a lot. They include long and short brewing instructions. Also the beer kits have reviews to look at as well. Plus there's here for resource information.
 
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