No more kits

I really want to start brewing and stop using kits. Currently on my 3rd batch all kits. I just have a 3 gallon brew pot more like a stock pot and of course all the carboys, funnel and the stuff for fermenting. What would be a good way to stop using kits??

josh940711 said:

I really want to start brewing and stop using kits. Currently on my 3rd batch all kits. I just have a 3 gallon brew pot more like a stock pot and of course all the carboys, funnel and the stuff for fermenting. What would be a good way to stop using kits??

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With the 3 gallon pot, you can do partial-boil stove top extract batches. You'd simply combine the 2 gallons or so of wort (chilled down to below 100*F in an ice bath) with 3 gallons of refrigerated spring water to end up with a mix that's around 60-62*F (an excellent pitch temp for ale yeast).

Take a look at the HBT recipe database. There are plenty of ideas there.

Explain a little more about the kits you have been using and what you want to do differently. I'm stuck with guessing without more info from you.

I've used a true brew IPA and an amber and a brewers best coffee porter. I'd like to go get separate ingredients myself outside of the kit. The kits have everything all measured out so I'm lolling to do somthing that is not a regimented as a kit if that makes sense. As far as what kind of beer it doesn't really matter. I like flavored beers like pumpkin ale and hopefully this coffe porter. I just didn't know how to get away from the kits. And I definitley need to invest in a bigger brew pot

josh940711 said:

I really want to start brewing and stop using kits. What would be a good way to stop using kits??

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The first step is to admit you have a problem....

Ahahaha! I was just thinking how happy I am to be brewing and have something fermenting! We finished a pumpkin ale a week ago and didn't have anything going

Whatever I do next thanks everybody for the advice

Buy "Brewing Classic Styles" and work your way through the book. It has recipes for extract and all grain. (The recipes are five gallon but I suppose you could scale them ).

Awesome thanks!!

After one kit I found this:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f82/

Never bought another kit...

When learning (as myself) I'd say there is nothing wrong with kits, especially when using extract.
When first starting I was hesitant of using other brewer's recipes or kits. That I was being unoriginal. Then I realized brewing is not always judged by recipe formulation, but by the final product. Give the same recipe/kit to two brewers, most likely you'll get two different beers.

I'm sure you could improvise with basic kits or recipes and add fruit, I did a little poking around,

Brewing W/ Fruit:
http://morebeer.com/articles/brewingwithfruit

Brewing With Style: Fruit Beer:
http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/990

And a bit older one:
http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/The-Jamil-Show/Fruit-Beers-The-Jamil-Show-04-24-06

HBT Thread, Adding Fruit:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/adding-fruit-flavor-53752/

Hope the pumpkin turns out well!

This will be super helpful for my next brew. Thanks everybody I might just have to start another brew pretty soon. I just finished the coffee porter well I mean just put it in the primary and pitched yeast

Josh? kinda sounds like you want to improvise a bit. You can do that with kits as most folks do make changes to the kits they get. I still buy kits, especially when they go on sale. I also build and brew my own. But when a kit is on a good price...

The thing you want to avoid is tossing stuff in willy nilly. Keep track of what you do so you can either avoid it again or do it again.

josh940711 said:

This will be super helpful for my next brew. Thanks everybody I might just have to start another brew pretty soon. I just finished the coffee porter well I mean just put it in the primary and pitched yeast

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You've already got that one in the fermenter and the yeast pitched and you haven't started another? What's keeping you?

I use recipes I find here on the recipe section but then I find that I don't have all the right ingredients so I have to wait for a trip to the LHBS, order online and wait, or improvise with a substitution. Improvise usually wins out.

trubdog said:

after one kit i found this:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f82/

never bought another kit...

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this^

Creativity is the name of the game I have learned. The guys that started this racket 1000s of years ago I'm sure didn't have any specific recipes. So throw some stuff together, brew it up, take copious notes, then tweak it. I recommend 1 gallon test batches.

Also if you are having fun and the final product is "drinkable" you are doing it right.

josh940711 said:

I've used a true brew IPA and an amber and a brewers best coffee porter. I'd like to go get separate ingredients myself outside of the kit. The kits have everything all measured out so I'm lolling to do somthing that is not a regimented as a kit if that makes sense. As far as what kind of beer it doesn't really matter. I like flavored beers like pumpkin ale and hopefully this coffe porter. I just didn't know how to get away from the kits. And I definitley need to invest in a bigger brew pot

Click to expand...

I think I know what you mean here. I started out brewing this past summer by taking a introductory class at my local homebrew shop, which focused solely on kit brewing. Afterwards I bought a brewers best starter kit which included 5 gal boil kettle, a carboy, fermenter bucket, bottling bucket and some odds and ends. First batch was a double IPA which seemed to not fully ferment quite like I was expecting and seemed a bit too malty. Add to that I didn't understand the value of controlling the fermentation temperature, which I am sure yielded me some off flavors. Second batch was a milk stout (brewers best kit again), which in a word... sucked.

All the while I was feeling like this was nothing more than following simple instructions. I realized that I wanted to "create" my beers, and even though I'm still finding recipies and following them there is still quite a bit of interpertation involved.

If you're trying to get away from brewing kits at a minimum get yourself a larger brew kettle (I bought a 15 gal blichmann), a mash tun (10 gal cooler with false bottle will work fine) and you'll be able to start brewing full all grain batches. It's a sizeable investment for sure, but for me it's been worth it. BTW, I found a smoked pumpkin saison recipie in BYO magazine that was my second all grain, and it turned out awesome, although I did play with the ingredients a bit. It turned into an imperial saison...
good luck

kenmcchord said:

I think I know what you mean here. I started out brewing this past summer by taking a introductory class at my local homebrew shop, which focused solely on kit brewing. Afterwards I bought a brewers best starter kit which included 5 gal boil kettle, a carboy, fermenter bucket, bottling bucket and some odds and ends. First batch was a double IPA which seemed to not fully ferment quite like I was expecting and seemed a bit too malty. Add to that I didn't understand the value of controlling the fermentation temperature, which I am sure yielded me some off flavors. Second batch was a milk stout (brewers best kit again), which in a word... sucked.

All the while I was feeling like this was nothing more than following simple instructions. I realized that I wanted to "create" my beers, and even though I'm still finding recipies and following them there is still quite a bit of interpertation involved.

If you're trying to get away from brewing kits at a minimum get yourself a larger brew kettle (I bought a 15 gal blichmann), a mash tun (10 gal cooler with false bottle will work fine) and you'll be able to start brewing full all grain batches. It's a sizeable investment for sure, but for me it's been worth it. BTW, I found a smoked pumpkin saison recipie in BYO magazine that was my second all grain, and it turned out awesome, although I did play with the ingredients a bit. It turned into an imperial saison...
good luck

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Isn't it fun telling other people to spend a bunch of money on brewing equipment? I didn't fall for that though. I bought a pair of paint strainer bags and a cheap Corona style mill for under $30 and brewed a half size batch in the equipment I had via BIAB, just to see if I could do it. Man, that was so easy, cheap, and the cleanup was a breeze. Just dump out the spent grains and rinse the bag in the sink. I had originally planned to go with a conventional mash tun if I stuck with all grain but BIAB makes the same beer without the worry of a stuck sparge so I've just kept on with BIAB.

I'm currently doing all grain kits from BrewCrate.com
They send me full BIAB kits at the start of every month, and it makes about 12 bottles. It's a subscription based model at $20/mo but I really like it because I can try making different styles in small batches. If I really like one, their kit recipes are on brewtoad.com so I can remake it. My other friends that brew think it's a waste of money, but I disagree. I think its better than making 5 gallons of something that I can't drink.
The kits come with everything you need including caps and the ingredients are always fresh because they are all packaged at the end of the month before they are shipped. You only need water, a small fermentor, and clean bottles.
Check out their site, they have a Facebook page too. If you're interested and want to sign up, PM me the email you're going to use and I might be able to get you $10 off your first month. Can you buy 12 good beers at the store for $10?

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Home Brew mobile app

Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with brewing kits. If you think about it, doing kits is really no different than finding a recipe online or in a book and buying the ingredients individually. Either way, you're still following someone else's directions. The only difference is the kits have exactly what you need and you don't end up with small amounts of leftover ingredients. That said, the recipe database on this site is an awesome resource, and it's always fun to experiment by tweaking the recipes.

I feel like brewing kits have helped me learn ingredients. The biggest thing it has done is help me isolate ingredients I like. I've been at this for 5 years now and I know the hops I like and the ones I just don't care for (looking at you fuggles).

It's all good whatever you do, but if you want to start from scratch on recipes this is where I usually start:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0937381500/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

That book is amazing.

I also bought a book of clone recipes that I use primarily for ideas and reference.

A lot of the time I get something commercial and I say, "I want to make something like this, but with more _____________."

Those two books have been invaluable.

Good luck sir.

I am still new to homebrewing but one of my first goals was to develop my own simple, "go to" recipe. At batch #5, I have it dialed in. I've learned alot along the way and have the satisfaction of beer that I not only brewed myself but designed myself.

Funny in that my favorite resource to avoid buying kits is a kit resource. I go to the all grain recipe section of the Northern Brewer documentation area. I go through the various recipes until I find something I like, then I get the ingredients myself. I don't yet feel comfortable designing my own beers yet, but I do tinker with the recipes I find.
I tend to cook from scratch, not follow recipes, and not buy pre-processed stuff so getting away from kits is par for the course for me.

I'm a cheapskate. I've never bought a kit because they seemed kind of pricey to me. I try to buy bulk on things I use a lot of and I re-pitch my yeast. The nearest thing to the porter I brewed yesterday (Edwort's recipe with a couple of minor alterations) would run me $38 as a kit at the LHBS. It cost me less than half that doing it on the cheap.

If you like the results from a kit but want to add or substitute something next time around it just adds to the cost of the kit. Otherwise it's just the same recipe every time. That might be okay if it's perfect (or good enough).

My LHBS sells extract for $2 a lb, so it was really easy to start making up recipes after the first couple batches. 6 lbs of extract, a lb of crystal, a few oz of hops and a pack of US-05 will get you a nice APA for $20 or so, and you can start experimenting with hops flavors, fruit or spice additions, etc

I think the issue is more your notion that a kit is holding you back in some way.

After all, what is a kit other than some pre-measured ingredients for a specific recipe? If you created a recipe from scratch or based on another recipe, what would you do next - buy a bunch of ingredients and then measure them out to your recipe? It's essentially the same thing, except you paid more for extra ingredients that you didn't need unless you got lucky and all of the prepackaged amounts were what you needed for your recipe.

The only benefit to buying ingredients separately from a kit is when you buy in bulk in order to save money on the ingredients themselves and the associated shipping charges. But even then you are typically buying for specific recipes in mind (you're not going to buy a bunch of random stuff), so essentially you are buying a bulk kit.

Buy all means, try out different styles of beers with recipes from different sources, but don't think that a kit makes them inferior to a beer brewed from bulk purchased ingredients. After all, the kit contents came from bulk ingredients at some point in their lives.

As a AEB "Advanced extract brewer" myself. One thing you might want to do is take a look at process and get them locked down. There is a lot to learn and be improved with the kits. The key to great beer what ever your process is , is consistency. Kits in some part can reduce the consistency problems allowing us to improve other ways.

One thing you could also do to mix it up a little "with your equipment" is make 1 gallon all grain batches brew in a bag style even. I make 2.5 gallon batches from time to time to compare to the extract beers i make.