kits vs ingrediants?

Hey all. Im on my third batch right now, all looks good with all the batches, but have not had a finall product yet as the first batch has another week in bottles before I try it. But.....went to the brew store today and the guy was saying "you ready to brew your own from ingrediants?" OK, new to this, so not sure on the termonology of everything, but for now, my concern is that....Are can-kits crap? or just not as good as using fresh ingrediants? I don't want to be making some poor swill, but been using the can kits to get the idea and start slow and practice good tecniques. Next batch when I get a propane burner (my stove sucks, I do good to boil for 15min in that big pot without some kind of problem, fire, ect...) So when I get a popane burner that I can easily control the temp/boil, I'm gonna do the fresh ingrediant thing, but for now, I just want to know if can kits are junk. Can kits....are these called extracts?

Can kits are normally pre-hopped extracts, I have never tried one but most people say they are sub-par. If you are not doing a 60 minute boil you are using prehopped kits. Malt extract comes in either a dry or liquid form, you will need to do different hop additions to create different beer styles. So to answer your question better we need to know what you are doing now?

They are not junk. They are good starting beers. Some guys are happy and never leave.

They usually lack head retention, and if you do not like the final product, there is not much you can change.

That said there are kits out there, Brewer's Best comes to mind, that are ingredient kits. Those are a good next step. You'll have grains to steep, and hops to add during the boil. From here if you do not like something about the flavor, you are free to change it.

Enjoy,
Barry

I have made about 15 brews from kits and a couple from DME (dried malt extract) and fresh hops. Pretty simple, just boil it up, add hops in at different times (early for bittering and later for aroma).
I have found a huge difference but it is a matter of taste and time contraints.

OK, I have used three different kits, and all go like this.....boil up 1 1/2 gal water, add contents of can with 3lbs dry malt (powder) and boil for 15min, then add to pre-chilled water in carboy, add more chilled water to 5 gal, then let cool to 76 degrees, and then add yeast to warm water, let hydrate, then pitch into carboy, give brief shake to get it all mixed up, set up a blow off tube into quart jar with some water in it and let ferment. When all activity has stopped, wait a day or so, and transfer to secondary, let sit for 2 weeks, then transfer to bucket and add priming sugar, then bottle. Let bottles set for 3 weeks. Thats my process in a nut shell. The first two fermented like crazy, but the wheat beer finished pretty quick, and the stout about damn blew up. Had to empty the blow-off jug twice a day, but it tastes great as it and was just bottled today. The wheat beer has a bit of an apple cider flavor/stale sour taste to it,really mild, but looks good so far, and the other, a nut-brown ale just got cooled, yeast added and went into primary.

Try a Brewers Best kit. It seems like a good middle ground. Its actually all I use because of my apartment size and equipment. They taste good and you can still experiment if you desire. There are TONS of flavors too for Brewers Best just look online most Home Brew Stores don't carry but some of your beers.

The end result is really good in my opinion. Maybe its because they are "mine" but I'd take them over any mainstream or microbrew. :rockin:

Personally, I think you should buy a kit from your LHBS or tell them the kind of beer you like and let them put the ingredients together for you. I think you will get fresher ingredients and they will tell you exactly what is in it. This way you will start to get a better appreciation for the ingredients, support you LHBS, and might even save a buck or two.

I wouldnt say the can kits are junk, but I would say they are just a starting point. There is just something about adding syrup to hot water that doesnt suggest "brewing" to me. If you are even slightly curious about what it would be like to create your own beer, then just do it. I have only made one brew from recipe. Everything else I create myself. Figure out what kind of beer you want, figure out how much alcohol you want and figure out the color you want and away you go. All you need is some DME (you can use the syrup, but make sure it is unhopped), some specialty grains for color and flavor, and some hops. Depending on the beer style you should be able to figure out the kinds of grains, hops and yeast you need; and I am sure you LHBS will be happy to help. Then give it a whirl, and if you dont like it, you can go back to the kits.

I have a feeling you wouldnt go back to the kits

yeah, you won't go back to the kits most LHBS will have their own dme kits put together with real fresh ingredients and general directions on how to brew. this is a good starting point. if they don't have it, i would suggest getting an ingredients book, like Clone Brews, which will give you step by step instructions as well as a wide variety of recipes to choose from.

Like the guys above me said, check out the kits from the HBS store. Check out morebeer.com or austinhomebrew and you can see all the different options they have for beers you may like.

I second the brewer's Best kits. They seem to be a step above the pre-hopped extract that you have been using. I have done two (my only two batches besides EdWort's Apfelwein) and both required steeping grains and adding boiling and fininsing hops. I havent been able to tase one yet at we bottled the first one on Saturday, but so far I am happy with the difficulty level.

Get an idea of a style you want to do and see if you can find any extract + steeping grains recipes on the web or in books. Look a few of them over. If you've felt confident about the process you've done so far, go to the LHBS with printouts of the recipes. Talk to the folks at the LHBS and work something up with them. Ask why they're choosing certain things. Taste some different grains.

This experience and conversation will be worth more than many other sources of info about this hobby.

Cheers!

Moon

I've never used a brewer's best kit, but have tried kits from beer-wine.com and austinhomebrew.com and I'm very impressed with both the selection of kits available and the quality of the end product from Austin Homebrew. I'm doing Mini-mash kits and there's still some LME to add, but it's mostly grains that they mix together and package for you. I'm not actually mashing the grains right in the water like an AG brew, I picked up a heavy duty grain bag for like $5 and it holds the grains of every mini mash that I've done so far.

IMHO, there's nothing wrong with kits as long as the LME isn't hopped. I like to have the control to add or subtract hops if I think it will contribute to the finished product.

That's all I ever have used so far, Brewers Best kits. They got it all even right down to the grain bags, caps and priming sugar. But, they can be expensive. The cheapest I've found and I've ordered quite a few from this company is:
www.leisure-time.com
I've actually went back and forth with what your comtemplating but for some reason, I always end up back to Brewers Best. I'm not one to constantly try newer brews. My goal was to find maybe two styles that I and SWMBO liked. After I'm happy with that style, try and make it better like going full boils, better yeast maybe an O2 injection, etc. etc. but pretty much stay within the preambles of the style. I'm about there. Funny thing is one of those styles is an american amber, which is also a BB kit. When I add up all the ingredients to make seperately, it's just plain ol' cheaper to buy the kit. Now my second choice is narrowing down to the Weizen or the american derivative of that. Those are pretty much easy to brew, even the BB kit comes with yeast, 6.6 lbs of LME, hops and that's it. That particular brew is cheaper to buy seperately. You just have to make an order large enough whereas you won't be charged shipping, like at morebeer.com I use dry yeast and it's cheap to keep in the refrigerator.

I've never made a packaged kit. When I go into my homebrew store, they have recipes hanging right inside the door. The person working there then helps you put together the ingredients. They all have specialty grains involved, so I feel they give a better view of the brewing process.

I'm sure that the kits make pretty decent beer, but I would think that going from ingredients probably make a little better beer. But either way you go, it's probably better than anything you can buy at the liquor store.