Home Brew Kits Any Good?

Ragdoll742

Howdy everyone, was just wondering about all these home beer brewing kits. I've been seeing them around and have watched a few videos on youtube, mostly about the Coopers sets. Are they any good? And if so, would it be worth parting the €90 - €100 with in the long run?

Cheers lads!

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moved to Home Brewing Forum

Shiny

I bought the Coopers home brew kit. Definitely worth it and great craic. Beer tasted great too!

You might be able to shave 20 to €30 off the price by buying everything separately but at least with the kit, you get everything you need.

I have made 7 or 8 brews with my kit now and still going strong.:pac:

Ragdoll742

Sounds promising!

How much does it cost to buy all the ingredients for brews, after the first? And also, is there much of a strong smell off it while it's fermenting?

Newtown Warrior

In total it costs approx €25e (€13-15 for a decent beer kit + €10 liquid malt extract/powder malt + if required specialist yeast/other additions) to produce 23 litres of beer.

It can be done cheaper by using kit (€13-15) + brewing sugar (€2 for 1 kg) instead of the liquid malt extract/powder malt but there is a huge taste benefit for using liquid malt extract/powder malt.

Once it is fermenting there is no smell but you may hear it bubbling depending where you keep the fermenter.

Its easy to do, I be on my 6th batch. Look up 'craig tube' for good easy starter guides.

merc230ce

It's great craic!

I got the Coopers kit and I'm just on my second brew. I haven't even really started drinking my first yet (apart from *ahem* scientific tasting) and I'm completely obsessed :-) Go for it!

Shiny

This is what happens...(at least to me anyway) :rolleyes:



Note the coopers kit box chopped in half to make 2 boxes!!!

I'm due another beer tasting soon.:pac:

merc230ce

Shiny wrote: »

This is what happens...(at least to me anyway) :rolleyes:



Note the coopers kit box chopped in half to make 2 boxes!!!

I'm due another beer tasting soon.:pac:

Brilliant! ;-D

Bugsyboy1

Shiny
Great photo.
What beers kits do you like to use?
I have a Coopers wheat beer ready to drink at the moment; a Cooper Canadian Blonde and a Muntons Pilsner conditioning at the moment.

Also how long do you conditon ur beers for?

Cheers

Paul

Saruman

Ragdoll742 wrote: »

Howdy everyone, was just wondering about all these home beer brewing kits. I've been seeing them around and have watched a few videos on youtube, mostly about the Coopers sets. Are they any good? And if so, would it be worth parting the €90 - €100 with in the long run?

Cheers lads!

It is well worth the initial investment and if you catch the bug like I did, you will have a bar at home with beers on tap and a steady stream of beer that is better quality than what you get commercially for the most part.

Today I brewed a Saison and kegged my last beer which was a Dreamsicle Wheat, essentially a wheat beer with vanilla bean and oranges.

Just wait till you get bored with kits and want to have more control and move on to full extract or even all grain (from scratch) like me.

You don't need to spend €100 to get started. Instead spend about half that on this. The beer kit will be uninteresting but start off, see how you get on and you can always get a more interesting beer kit for next time. Also read these instructions as opposed to whatever crap comes with the kit.
Also don't worry about a brewbelt as HBW suggest, waste of money. All you need is room temp. About 18c is perfect. A towel in a cupboard is usually fine. I use a remote controlled thermostat panel heater I already had. Perfect for keeping the fermenting room at the temp I want.

Bugsyboy1 wrote: »

Also how long do you conditon ur beers for?

Cheers

Paul

Paul, condition your beer for a minimum of two weeks before drinking. You can sample a bottle after one week and it will be carbonated. If you can leave it for a month you should see a significant difference.

Shiny

Bugsyboy1 wrote: »

Shiny
Great photo.
What beers kits do you like to use?
I have a Coopers wheat beer ready to drink at the moment; a Cooper Canadian Blonde and a Muntons Pilsner conditioning at the moment.

Also how long do you conditon ur beers for?

Cheers

Paul

I normally condition for around a month before I let other people drink it, I usually drink it myself within the time range described by Saruman.
The wheat beer kit has been the most popular brew I have made with other people by far!
I have an excel file to keep track of all the brews that I make, and from that here is the list of Brews. All kits & a few experiments so far.

• International Mexican Cerveza
• Brewmaster Wheat Beer
• Coopers Selection IPA
• Pomegranate Honey Cider
• Muntons Premium Gold
• Coopers European Lagar
• Viking Mead
• Red Wine
• St Peters Ruby Red Ale
• Basic Mead
• Brewers Choice Bavarian Weissbier
• Brewers Choice Traditional IPA

The last 2 kits are a bit more involved than the normal kit process and it represents my urge to have more control over the brews. This pretty much sums up where I am right now:

Saruman wrote:

Just wait till you get bored with kits and want to have more control and move on to full extract...

And it just happens that I got my pot this weekend in the city centre!

jjanderton

Hii there.....


Without any hesitation,Coopers DIY Beer Kit and Mr. Beer System both are great place to start. It is low-priced; did not need knowledge of brewing to start, and makes fantastic beer.

It will give you a lot more flexibility to try out various brewing techniques and you will easily be able to add more complicated apparatus to your basic kit if you decide to continue brewing.


Regards J

calvin_zola

Hi there, I am in the process of buying a Beer making kit of HBW, but I'm wondering can anyone advise me as to what would be a good Beer Ingrediant Kit to start off with... I've heard lagers can be unforgiving... I enjoy IPA and stout, would a good IPA or Australia pale ale be a handy one to start off with , or maybe an Irish stout...

Saruman

It's hard to mess up a stout. Lager kits are not lagers at all so I would not bother with them.

calvin_zola

Saruman wrote: »

It's hard to mess up a stout. Lager kits are not lagers at all so I would not bother with them.

Cool, going to purchase some Coopers Irish Stout in that case and have it ready for the dark nights in November!

BeerNut

Happy brewing! Remember to ignore the instructions and read this instead.

calvin_zola

BeerNut wrote: »

Happy brewing! Remember to ignore the instructions and read this instead.

Will do BeerNut, thats a great guide, had a read of it yesterday. I've heard the manufacturers instructions are muck.

Its nice to have an excuse to build up a collection of 40 odd empty brown glass bottles this weekend ....Gulp!

Saruman

calvin_zola wrote: »

Its nice to have an excuse to build up a collection of 40 odd empty brown glass bottles this weekend ....Gulp!

Is that 40 odd bottles in one weekend? Fun weekend