Austin Kit Tips?

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dogboysdad

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My all-grain kits from Austin arrive tomorrow. I ordered them without yeast as I was afraid the yeast would be ruined sitting in a truck over the holiday weekend. I can get yeast at my local HBS.

Do any of you have any tips to make my first Austin experience a positive one? I have done only two all-grain batches before. These will be my 3rd, 4th and 5th.

Thanks in advance!
 
Almost all of my partial mash and all grain beers have been done via ingredients purchased through AHS and have no complaints. The only issue I did have was I thought efficiency was a bit low, but I attributed that to still being new to AG and dialing in my process. But after a number of batches and consulting with a few others it seems like a 70-72% efficiency was the norm. Maybe due to the crush, I don't know, and I haven't tested with another supplier yet to compare, but it's not even really a bad thing.

But other than that basically non-issue, I have nothing but great things to say about AHS. I've probably dropped a grand over there in the past year or so. :D
 
I've been very happy with the quality of ingredients from AHS, both in kits and buying separately. I live in Dallas and travel to Austin periodically, so I can make an order and grab it on the way up.

However, I've had some real problems with their shopping cart software messing up and taking forever to sort out the right items I want. It seems to want to add crap I don't want. I got so confused by it this last time I ended up not ordering a specialty grain and I didn't realize it until I was crushing and about to start mashing. They also gave me a wrong item in place of something I ordered, but I realized it and switched it out before I left town.

So, I would say check your order immediately when it comes in to make sure everything is there and that it is all correct.
 
Thanks guys. You are making me feel good about my purchase already.

Do these kits come with easy-to-understand instructions?
 
No kidding! If you drop items in the cart but don't purchase then come back later and drop another recipe of items in the cart then the cart will show only the most recent items. When you go to checkout then all items that you have put in the cart will be there usually doubling or tripling your order.... Frustrating fer sure.
 
My last two kits have sat at the local UPS over the weekend, have been delivered Monday in my over 90 degree carport, and when opened, the chill packs have been warmer than room temperature. I've made a starter each Monday evening and pitched Tuesday evening.

Both White Labs yeasts (WLP028 and WLP051) have done just fine.
 
No kidding! If you drop items in the cart but don't purchase then come back later and drop another recipe of items in the cart then the cart will show only the most recent items. When you go to checkout then all items that you have put in the cart will be there usually doubling or tripling your order.... Frustrating fer sure.

If you log in first then start shopping it saves everything. If you put stuff in your cart and then go away without logging in, the items will disapear. Imagine all of the tire kickers that put stuff in a cart and then never shop with us. This would bog down the website and make it run slower and we would have to purge frequently.

Forrest
 
My last two kits have sat at the local UPS over the weekend, have been delivered Monday in my over 90 degree carport, and when opened, the chill packs have been warmer than room temperature. I've made a starter each Monday evening and pitched Tuesday evening.

Both White Labs yeasts (WLP028 and WLP051) have done just fine.

We ship over 33,700 liquid yeast a year and we only have a problem with about a dozen a year. Liquid yeast is much hardier than people think. Thanks to the testimony to the fact that your yeast was ok.

Forrest
 
If you log in first then start shopping it saves everything. If you put stuff in your cart and then go away without logging in, the items will disapear. Imagine all of the tire kickers that put stuff in a cart and then never shop with us. This would bog down the website and make it run slower and we would have to purge frequently.

Forrest

The problem is if you add stuff to the cart without logging in, leave and then come back, it won't show in the cart. When you add new items to the empty cart, log in and try to finish the order, all the items you've ever put in the cart add into the cart so you end up with way more than you want. I've also experienced some items disappearing from the cart.

So even though it disappears, somehow it all comes back right before you try to pay.
 
It retains the items in your cart if you have added them when you logged in. So if you come to the cart without logging in, the cart will be empty because the website doesnt know who you are until you log in.

If you go to the site without logging in and add 3 items to the cart then log in it should take those 3 things you put in the cart and add them to the 5 things you put in your cart a couple of days before when you were logged in.

If you add things to the cart without logging in and then leave it will not save the items because it doesnt know who you are until you log in.

We cant save everything in carts for the people that dont have an account and or never sign in. This would bog down the website.

Let me know if it still doesn't make sense.
Forrest
 
It made sense to me. My order arrived yesterday. It looks good. I'll fiddle around with it this weekend.
 
At AHS, I recommend logging in, then put items in the wishlist. When ready to send it an order, go to the wishlist, click all that you want, and checkout.
 
The best tip for their kits? Follow the instructions. Well written and easy to understand. It is certainly a good idea to read them through before you start to brew.
 
I ordered a complete kit from AHS including the yeast from them before (with a cold pack). The cold pack had melted by the time I got the kit and I was worried about the yeast, but it worked just fine.

The kit came with LME drizzled over the plastic container and packaging peanuts stuck to the side. It took me a while to clean up the mess inside the box and pull the peanuts off the bucket, but my bucket was not leaking. It just looked like somebody made a mess while filling it up. I was a little disappointed in that because all it takes is a person with a rag to clean it off before putting it in the box. Other than that everything was ok.

As david mentioned, they do include instructions so the brew day goes fast. My recommendation would be to have your water prepared in advance, however you like to do it. I filter all of mine and that takes a while to do.
 
At AHS, I recommend logging in, then put items in the wishlist. When ready to send it an order, go to the wishlist, click all that you want, and checkout.
+1 on that! It saves me a lot of frustration because I will add small things to my wish list but when I order, I would hve forgotten them.
 
I've ordered a few extract and partial-mash recipes from AHS and the instructions have always been easy to follow, so no worries!
 
I've ordered all-grain kits in the past, and the instructions were perfect. The instructions are clear and easy to understand, and should give you great results.
 
I order almost exclusively from AHS. Ingredients are top notch and I've never had a problem with liquid yeast viability. They simply run a great operation and you got to love flat rate shipping.
 
I've ordered a ton of stuff from them this year (including 10+ vials of White Labs) without any problems. The shopping cart thing can probably be resolved by logging in before you add anything to your cart. When you log in, it merges the shopping cart items associated with your account with the shopping cart items associated with your current web session. It may be the web developer nerd in me, but I didn't have issues with it.
 
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