Hey folks,
brewing my first beer kit soon and looking for some advice.
I want to make either a Pilsner or lager but prefer Pilsner that isnt bitter, hoppy or malty at all.
Which of the canned extract kits would you suggest? Im looking at Coopers, Brew Canada, Muntons, Morgans Canadian Beer kits.
Do you have any suggestions? Any input would be appreciated!
What you want to do requires very cool and very controlled fermenting temperatures. Plus there are other complications. An ordinary ale is way simpler.
My suggestion if you want a specific one would be the Northern Brewer "Block Party Amber Ale" 5 gallon kit. You can get just the ingredients or you can get it with a cheap kettle, fermentation bucket, bottle bucket, all the other basic paraphernalia. It's not a bad buy for what you are getting, and you end up with a very drinkable beer. The supplied yeast will ferment nicely at around 72f up to about 74f. Follow the instructions like they came lasered into stone tablets, don't freestyle anything, do everything exactly as instructed, and your chances of failure are pretty darn low. It's a good way to get your feet wet.
If there is an option to get a "Big Mouth Bubbler" fermenter instead of the bucket, get it. You will get really aggervated getting that bucket lid on and off after a couple of batches, and failure to get a good seal is a possible reason for a batch to fail. The BMB is a very handy fermenter. You need to shield it from UV light and I just dress mine up in a black tshirt, works great. Get the one with the spigot near the bottom, very convenient.
I hate bottling. I keg all my beer. it is way easier, cleaner, and more convenient. If you don't know if you are going to stick with it or not, stick with bottling for your first batch. Otherwise you might also get keg, faucet, CO2 tank, regulator, all that stuff. You will have a couple of weeks from starting the batch before you will really be worrying about where you are gonna put the beer, so plenty of time to set up your kegging and serving apparatus and get the loose bits that you didn't get. Then again, some guys just prefer bottling. Whatever blows your skirt up.
Northern Brewer has a lot of different kits, plenty to choose from, and several other vendors also have a wide array of batch kits. You will find a medium gravity ale made with either dry or liquid extract to be your easiest first go. You might decide to stick with extract brewing. Beer snobs might sneer a bit but who cares? If your extracts are fresh and stored properly, you will get very consistent batches, and it is really easy. Or you might want to switch to grain, for more control over the process, or to save money. My 8% or so brown ales cost me about 40ȼ per pint, unless I am paying myself for the work, in which case it is kind of expensive.
