Single Hop Experiment kits - $14-18 at Amazon

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lumbergh said:
I got the Belgian Dubbel kit yesterday for about $17. Everything looks fine. They jacked the price up to $50 now.
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That is going to be a great brew. That recipe, with an add of 4oz each of Caravienne and Aromatic and using Wyeast 1388 Belgian Strong Ale yeast, was sold as a kit by the now defunct Brewmaster's Warehouse as "Double Trouble." Hops were different, using 2 oz bittering only with Hallertauer. It was one of my best tasting brews. You done good.
 
How are the grains packaged in these? All mixed together or separated? I’d imagine unmilled would be separate bags, but what if they’re milled? I don’t have the kettle capacity, so I’m curious if they’re separated out so I could weigh half out for two 2.5 batches.
 
I got mine unmilled, they are bagged separately. Hopefully someone who bought milled will chime in, or you can ask the question on Amazon. You also might mix the grains well by eye. The two batches might not be identical, but I believe they would be close.
When I was first brewing BIAB, I used a five gallon kettle for five gallon batches. To get to full volume I would dunk sparge in another pot, and add that to the boil as liquid boiled off. Then I would top off in the kettle after the boil, and in the fermenter. This method is a variation of a standard extract partial boil, but your "extract" comes from a mash. I did this on the stove, using a cheap 20 quart pot. The other vessel for sparging was a 16qt pasta pot, but could be a bucket.
 
lumbergh said:
I got the Belgian Dubbel kit yesterday for about $17. Everything looks fine. They jacked the price up to $50 now.
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I got one of these also for about $17. It is going for $60 now at the regular price. There seems to be a slow drip of cheap kits and you need to just look now and then. I'm pretty sure you can't buy just these these grains for $17. I've never bought a kit before.
 
I bought the kit because it was cheaper than buying everything separate. The MoreBeer price is $37 for the kit I believe. The Candi sugar is about $7 on it's own!

I figure I will use some of the grain for something else and do a small batch of the Belgian Dubbel.
 
The only unmilled one now is a Lemondrop single hop kit at $25.25. It says (base malts only)? Are there specialty malts. There is no ingredient list so I can't see what is in it. No yeast. I am sure I could put together the ingredients for less than $25.25.
 
kh54s10 said:
The only unmilled one now is a Lemondrop single hop kit at $25.25. It says (base malts only)? Are there specialty malts. There is no ingredient list so I can't see what is in it. No yeast. I am sure I could put together the ingredients for less than $25.25.
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The (Base Malts Only) refers to that only the base Malts are unmilled. Specialty malts come premilled.
 
k-os said:
The (Base Malts Only) refers to that only the base Malts are unmilled. Specialty malts come premilled.
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That is how I read it also. Though a kit like this could be all base malt. It is a bit disingenuous to advertise a kit as unmilled then have it contain milled grains. That alone would keep me from buying one. Though I haven't bought a kit in over 7 years.
 
kh54s10 said:
I saw that. I have a mill and would not buy milled grains. My system is set up for my crush. If I use milled grains I don't know what to expect.

Pretty sure I could still beat that price buying my own ingredients. But without knowing what is in the kit, I cannot make a comparison.
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Here's the MoreBeer page for the Lemondrop Kit.

https://www.morebeer.com/products/l...iment-extract-beer-brewing-kit-5-gallons.html

According to the recipe sheet it contains:
10lbs 2-Row Pale
12oz Crystal 15L
0.5oz Magnum for bittering
2oz Lemondrop for flavoring
2oz Lemondrop for aroma
2oz Lemondrop for dry hop
Whirlfloc Tablet
4oz corn sugar for bottling

These are the same ingredients I got when I ordered the Bravo Single Hop Kit (Bravo hops replacing the Lemondrop hops in above ingredients).
 
kh54s10 said:
I saw that. I have a mill and would not buy milled grains. My system is set up for my crush. If I use milled grains I don't know what to expect.

Pretty sure I could still beat that price buying my own ingredients. But without knowing what is in the kit, I cannot make a comparison.
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The description on Amazon sucks, but you can type the name into Morebeer.com (or google) to see the full specs.

All of the 'single hop' kits are identical, except for the type of hop. They all have the ingredients in the first post of the thread, with 6 ounces of the hop that's in the name of the kit. Base grains (10 lbs of 2-row) are unmilled, but specialty grains (12 oz of Crystal 15L) are milled. I ran them through my mill anyway, since my crush is finer than Morebeer's.
 
Carolina_Matt said:
My fear with rounding them up is that I have no idea how long they've been laying at the bottom of the box, and in what condition. The box smelled pretty bag as soon as I opened it.

I did a return-and-replace with Amazon, but it said they would not ship it until late March or late April. So I did a chat, and they refunded half of what I paid. Essentially I paid about $8.50 for 3 ounces of Ron Mexico hops, 10 lbs of 2-row, and some other small stuff. I checked online and saw a recipe that uses 3 ounces of these hops, so maybe I'll give that a shot. Or just do a 2.5 gallon batch of the original recipe, and keep the leftover grains for something else.
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I'm cooking up the Ron Mexico kit right now. Since half of the hops were duds, I'm doing 1 oz at 30 minutes, 1 @ 10 minutes and 1 @ flameout. I've attached a pic of the hops.

The three at the top are from sealed bags. They're greenish and smelled very fresh, like I'm used to hops smelling. At the bottom left is from an unsealed bag. The hops were still in the bag, but it was open. They were a little more brown, rather than green, and there wasn't much aroma.

The hops at the bottom right were 2 ounces that were floating at the bottom of the Amazon box. They smelled terrible (like feet) and were light brown.

At the very least, I finally got a chance to smell bad hops so I'll know what they smell like in the future.
IMG_20190301_103816745a.jpg
 
According to the recipe sheet it contains:
10lbs 2-Row Pale 1.09/lb 10.90
12oz Crystal 15L 1.59/lb 1.19
0.5oz Magnum for bittering 1.20/oz .60
2oz Lemondrop for flavoring .95/oz 1.90
2oz Lemondrop for aroma .95/oz 1.90
2oz Lemondrop for dry hop .95/oz 1.90
Whirlfloc Tablet 1.79/10 .18
4oz corn sugar for bottling 1.39/lb .35 Total = 18.92

$.29 savings by buying separately. (not much) But compare it to the $25.25 for what I would buy and that is now $6.33 in savings. I would pay some shipping at Farmhouse Brewing Supply where I got the prices, but I would also buy more items. I could probably find the same or cheaper prices elsewhere with no shipping charge if I looked.

Buy in bulk and the savings would be even greater...
 
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kh54s10 said:
According to the recipe sheet it contains:
10lbs 2-Row Pale 1.09/lb 10.90
12oz Crystal 15L 1.59/lb 1.19
0.5oz Magnum for bittering 1.20/oz .60
2oz Lemondrop for flavoring .95/oz .48
2oz Lemondrop for aroma .95/oz .48
2oz Lemondrop for dry hop .95/oz .48
Whirlfloc Tablet 1.79/10 .18
4oz corn sugar for bottling 1.39/lb .35 Total = 14.66

$4.55 savings by buying separately. But compare it to the $25.25 for what I would buy and that is now $10.59 in savings. I would pay some shipping at Farmhouse Brewing Supply where I got the prices, but I would also buy more items. I could probably find the same or cheaper prices elsewhere with no shipping charge if I looked.

Buy in bulk and the savings would be even greater...
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Might want to check your math on those Lemondrop hops. You divided by two instead of multiplying, not that it makes a huge difference.
 
k-os said:
Might want to check your math on those Lemondrop hops. You divided by two instead of multiplying, not that it makes a huge difference.
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Thanks, I corrected things. Still some savings over buying one of these kits. Maybe convenience would make it worth something to a lot of people but for me, since I buy in bulk, I will go with the savings even if small.

I do like to see recipes like these for inspiration in making my own recipes.
 
kh54s10 said:
Thanks, I corrected things. Still some savings over buying one of these kits. Maybe convenience would make it worth something to a lot of people but for me, since I buy in bulk, I will go with the savings even if small.

I do like to see recipes like these for inspiration in making my own recipes.
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It still looks off to me. If it's $0.95/ounce, it should be $1.90 for two ounces. You're listing it as $.96. I get just under $19 when I correct for that.

I do agree that some of them are cheaper to just buy in bulk. For the kits I bought, they were more in the $15 range and they included more expensive hops (Ron Mexico is $3-5 per ounce from what I've seen, so 6 ounces is a big savings in a $15-17 kit). For the remaining kits, a lot of them can be cheaper if you buy in bulk.
 
I was in a bit of a hurry around noon when I was totaling the costs. I have corrected the numbers and hope I got it right this time. It is still a good savings if you compare to the unmilled kit, which is what I would want.

Still there is only one choice that is low priced. The others would cost way more as a kit.
 
lumbergh said:
I figure I will use some of the grain for something else and do a small batch of the Belgian Dubbel.
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I really don't care for most Belgian yeast. I don't enjoy the phenolic, clove or banana flavors. What else might one do with this kit using other ale yeast and perhaps some other hop additions?
 

Attachments

  • KIT260-KIT560-Belgian Dubbel(WEB).pdf
    1.5 MB · Views: 49
InspectorJon said:
I really don't care for most Belgian yeast. I don't enjoy the phenolic, clove or banana flavors. What else might one do with this kit using other ale yeast and perhaps some other hop additions?
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Without Belgian yeast or candi syrup, that grain bill could fit many styles I think. I would check the recipe stats against other styles for overlap. But I think it would make a good pale al or IPA.
 
smata67 said:
It is also worth checking the extract kits, picked up the Snowflake Smoked Porter for $18, $41 on the MB site.
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This kit came in and I can report each of the grains were individually packed, making it easy to re-purpose if necessary, but I think I'm going to give this smoked porter a shot as is.
 
Any one else notice when these cheap prices they slowly creep down as the units sell/days go on?

Red Ale extract was 16.85 on 19th, then I saw it yesterday at 15.92 and today it’s 15.27. Wondering if they are reducing as they hit an age date ??

Either way, great deals to be had.
 
Prices fluctuate hour by hour. This kit went down .25 soon after I purchased it earlier today. A few hours ago it had gone up to $15.67 and as we speak it is $19.09, all within a single day! Amazon has algorithms determining pricing. If we could figure out how to manipulate (are you listening APU?), perhaps we can get the kits down to under $10! I also have had issues searching the stock, sometimes things they have for sale don't come up and have to be searched directly by name. Lots of game playing on Amazon's part.

I will be brewing the Snowflake Porter kit tomorrow and everything about it looks A-OK. Hops smell intoxicating and all the grains were vacuum packed. LME is in a large barrier bag. It was most likely packaged for sale this winter. I certainly would not have paid $40.99 for it, but for $17.57 shipped to my door, why not?
 
I have the HBC??? + CBD fermented and dry hopped waiting for a keg to die, and a Citra that I am going to brew this weekend they were great deals at about $20 each and than free shipping on top I got the Robo Porter one for like $18 at the same time that's waiting for late fall to brew though


:cask:
 
Man thanks for the reminders, ya'll, the Pilsner kit I did turned out great and after lagering it, it's clear and smooth. Definitely would get a kit again.
 
I ordered the Witbier mini-mash kit for 18.88 with Prime shipping. MoreBeer's price for it right now is $41.99, and on Amazon it's back over $50.
 
I can confirm that the beer kits (both extract and milled grain) are coming with separate bags for the different milled grains. This makes it very easy to re-purpose the ingredients into other recipes.
 
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