Adding flavor to the box Kraft Mac n' Cheese

Okay here goes:

a couple of weeks ago i got a tru brew kit for pilsner. It was a very simple kit. I ferment for about 7 days and bottled a few hours shy of the total seven days. I drank my first beer on the 7th day after bottling (probably too soon but oh well...). It wasn't bad...however, i don't think all the priming sugar had completely did its thing because in each glass i poured i could see a little sugary ring in the bottom after i finished. Also, the abv was not very high because i drank quite a few (like i said it wasn't too bad). However, in the morning i did notice an odd taste in my mouth and a rough tongue from which i believe it to be unfinished sugar. The next week, 7 days later, i opened another few bottles with slightly different results. The sweetness had diminished slightly along with the ring in the glass. Also, the abv was significantly higher. what a difference those 7 days made. Okay, those are my findings on my first batch.
Now I plan to brew the same kit again, however, I want to do a few things different.

First, I would like to try 5lbs of liquid extract instead of mixing dry and liquid. What do you guys think that would do?

Second, I believe i would like to try fresh hops instead of the dried hops in the bag and maybe an alternative to the dried hop pellets ( if there is one, please let me know).

Third, I will ferment for a longer time, more like 10-12 days before bottling.

These are simple thoughts from a simple man just trying to make the box Kraft Mac and cheese a little more flavorful than its original packaging. If anyone has any thoughts on these ideas, please feel free. Escpecially if im doing somethinge outlandish or I'm doing some irrelevant/futile processes. Any ideas for a better brew (similiar to pilsner kit) will due. thanks for the info and looking forward to hearing your ideas.



Mortimer

1. How did you add the sugar to the first batch? If you didn't boil it in a little water, then it might have stayed crystalized.

2. All commercial hops are dried. Unless you are growing them yourself or live next to a hop field, you not going to find fresh hops, and even if you did, they harvest in late summer, early fall.

Yes, I boiled it in water and then added, aerated and again, fermentation started within a few hours. Okay, understand about the hops, however, I brewed a couple of years ago a few times when in college (hard to spend $50 on beer you can't drink for two months) and remember I got some hops that looked much more fresh and were a nice green and didn't smell like old cabbage. Really, I like this type of beer and would like to spruce it up a bit. Just looking for a few things to do that will make this a little more flavorful. Thanks again for your comments, and please ask any questions that I can give an answer to.

Mortimer

Dude, sounds to me like you need to get a couple more kits under your belt before you start screwin with the formulas. Now dont get pissed, i'm not tryin to be a dick, i was the same way when i started, trying to figure out what every little off taste was, how to fix it, and make it better. Then a freind told me to do a few things:

1-Get a kit
2-Focus on your sanitation, it has to be perfect.
3-Follow the instructions in the kit(i double the fermentation time, add a week of secondary, and double the in the bottle time)
4-Do not drink the beer green, your abv will be fouled up and it wont carb right.
5-Boil the sugar in water, cool it and rack the wort on top of it.
I did all these things and madethe finest american amber(Brewers best) i ever had. Alot of guys will give you a bunch of complicated(but good) advice that will just confuse or distract you. Once you get that great beer you'll be hooked, you'll understand better what your doing and then you can start making ****ty beer all you want cause then youll know enough to mess up anything. (just kidding) You will be hooked though. And the modifying and creating your own recipes will come natural as hell.
Hope this helped

No offense man,
yeah i understand and know you're not trying to be a dick. I do have a kit, and follow things to the book. So from what you're telling me, my next time I am going to do some simple things.

ferment longer (14 days)
Don'd drink 7 days after bottling (well that's going to be a tough one but maybe i won't drink half of it then)
as far as sanitation, I'm a germaphobe. dude it takes me 2 hours to sanitize because bacteria freaks me out. I make sure when i wash dishes that each dish sits for at least 30 secs for the sanitizer to set in(a little OCD but that's just the way these balls bounce)
Secondary Fermentation- okay, not sure b/c like others, what i've read says that its unecessary, however, you say do it so i'm open minded and i'll do it. If you could tell me why i should do it that would be great but it doesn't matte b/c I will anyway (im one of those people that wants to understand method to madness).
Sugar-Give it a little boil time. Okay, understood. I will try that as well.
Again, let me say that I enjoy the beer that I have brewed. However, just trying to make it better. Thanks a hell of alot for those simple procedures. Eventually, I would like to get to brewing beer similiar to wychwood (maybe a far cry and years away but damn they're good) and simliar clones to some of the US micro brews. Anything else would be much appreciated.

Mortimer

I find secondary valuable fo a couple of reasons. Firts of all once i did it iwas hooked cause the first batch i did it to (a XX clone) it came out crystal clear with little or no trub or yeast in the bottle(i also credit using a little irish moss so i'm not positive which one deserves more credit). secondly its a good time to add mild flavors like lime, cherry, fruit, etc... and it doesnt overpower. It really doesnt matter with porters or stouts, i use a long primary in those cause clarity isnt that important. Here is kinda my process for a scotch ale i did recently that turned out absolutely perfect:

after boiling i pitched a liquid yeast into my 68degree wort
Left in primary for 14
Racked to secondary for 14 days
Bottled and didnt touch for 14 days
+++confession+++ I am an advocate of try one bottle each week till its good but i tried it on week 2 and drank about 2 gallon.

But on week 6 in the bottle(this past saturday) its the best beer i've ever had. BAR NONE! I'm sending REVVY one to get some critisism but i think he'll like it. The secondary left no, none, nada, zip, zilch sediment in the bottles, its as clear and pure as a store purchased beer (its a cool feeling). I've never done that before.

Clarity in homebrew means nothing for taste, but when you pull that bottle out and giveit to an experienced brewer and he compliments you on the clarity, well.... i guess its like the paintjob on your car, a great runnin V-8 with a cam the size of a beer can and a huge blower on it will melt the wheels off but if it has a ****ty paintjob you still wont take your lady out in it. Go the extra mile to put a smooth ass paint job on it and you have something special.

OH BTW, the best tool and freind a brewer has is time. If yalike it green, put six back for twomonths and you'll fall in love.

Right on,
Yeah, I'm a fan of the irish moss. I always use it and it does wonders for clarity. And I know that a chevelle with dual exhaust and cams means little when it has bondo for the exterior. As far as the flavorings, what might I add with a pilsner? honestly, and I hope I don't soudn like a dbag, but i like a little sweetness in the beer but not really about fruity. However, if fruit would give some natural flavor, I'm for it. Tell me what you think.

P.S. What do you do for chill haze?

Mort, I think you're doing fine and heading in the right direction. The first few batches and first few posts on HBT are all about the learning curve and mimimizing damage. BTW, pilsener is just about the hardest thing to get right that you could have attempted at this early stage so remember to cut yourself copious slack.

Patience with the beer will come as you get a good supply of beer in bottles and in primary. It's a lot easier to let a beer sit for 3wks in primary or 4 weeks in the bottle when you've always got 5-10 gallons at any given stage of the pipeline. It's like the difference between how you treat your first kid ("oh my god! he's got a speck on his bib!") and your third kid ("Hose him off, he's fine.").

My contribution for your next batch: normally one does not aerate the beer after the primary ferementation is underway. So when priming/bottling keep the beer as still as practical while ensuring the boiled priming solution is mixed in. Many people put the liquid in the bottom of the bottling buck and rack on top of it, and then stir gently (or not).
Also, I wonder about this part:

fermentation started within a few hours.

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Does this mean the beer + priming sugars stayed in the primary or bottling bucket until fermentation kicked back in? Normally the beer would be bottled immediately after addition of the priming sugars so you wouldn't know fermentation had restarted. Maybe you are bottling in plastic bottles and could feel the pressure. Can you pls flesh that bit out for us?

mortimer77 said:

P.S. What do you do for chill haze?

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Chill haze is hard to fight at your stage in the process. The low-tech approach would be to allow the beer to warm up to about 50F from the refrigerator's 40F. 50-55F tastes much better than 40F for most of the stuff I make anyhow.

More advanced approaches include things like all-grain brewing with protein rests in the mash schedule (like 122F) or cold crashing in a dedicated externally-temp-controlled refrigerator. Don't mean to scare you off but those particular dragons are probably well down the road. In the mean time I'd just set them on the counter for about 15mins and let them warm until the chillhaze proteins release their Inferno-esque grip on each other and become translucent again.

mortimer77 said:

Yes, I boiled it in water and then added, aerated and again, fermentation started within a few hours.

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This sounds like the malt. I was asking about the sugar at bottling. Did you boil that in a little water, or just add sugar directly to the bottle?