Jim's Beer Kit

We have local breweries set up in the last 20 years in the wider Newcastle area selling cask ales. But they tend to sell hoppy pale ales, when a long-established regional family brewer would probably make sure they had a bitter available. You do see a traditional brown bitter now bad again, but it i...

Sad state of affairs. The model of regional brewers serving a local market with distinctive beers is still possible, as Harvey's shows. It's just that it does not suit shareholder capitalism. It should be possible for people in West Midlands to buy a pint of Banks Mild on cask if that's what they wa...

I've certainly made kits where I cannot tell it was a kit. Could an AG brewer with decent skills (and more time than me) make a more complex and exceptional beer? Yes, no doubt. But could I tell it was a kit? No, relative to a good number of perfectly decent commercially produced beers, no. Often on...

I like the Muntons Yorkshire Bitter kit made with medium dried malt extract and replacing the yeast with something like safale 04. Makes a full bodied, well balanced bitter. It ends up being slightly pricey relative to other kits if you make these mods but it suits me. The Woodfordes Wherry kit seem...

Welcome! I can vouch for the fact that kits are probably better than in the past. In recent years I have moved from all grain brewing to making kits, primarily for reasons of time. You can make decent beer from kits if you buy a decent one, don't add tons of sugar, and are careful about fermentation...

Wow, and why on earth would you be in an O'Neil's in the first place, especially when you are in the heart of London and surrounded by Great pubs??

Excellent. Really like Bluebird. Challenger is such a nice but underrated hop.

It seems like the issue is the starsan foaming. I use good old fashioned water in my airlock and never had a problem yes thats correct.I always worry about the airlock liquid being sucked in,but I guess that would only happen during a cold crash or during kegging I've cold crashed beer and if the w...

Interesting. Presumably it tasted a bit different?

Don't think I've ever had a Kolsch.

It seems like the issue is the starsan foaming. I use good old fashioned water in my airlock and never had a problem

The yeast you get with the kit may struggle to ferment 3.6 kg of liquid malt extract and 1 kg of light DME. The packs are already on the small side, plus I'm guessing they will be old now. The fg will be high. I would replace the yeast if you're going to do this.

Nice to see you back

Welcome to the forum Mikky, looking forward to hearing more about your brewing exploits!

Why not just try a crossmyloof FOUR next time. I don't think muntons Gold will be anything very special. Or even pucker so4 Thanks Mash. I tried S04 before with kits and will do that again in future. But the Muntons gold seemed to give marginally better results, although I never compared side by si...

If you bought a Muntons Connoisseurs one can kit they used to suggest in the instructions that you buy a gold yeast if you using DME. Not sure what they are going to say now!