Improving beer kits

[az77]

Well it's all done, sit back and wait now, it was meant to be a summer ale and showed it as pale lager colour in the picture although it seems pretty dark to me like newcastle brown ale - i doubt it will lighten up, i can tell already i will be dissapointed, i mean essentially your just drinking dark malty sugar, unless you brew a lager of course, i doun't see why a lot of brewers treat lager like a joke, i think lager is where the real art is at.So i had my first experience with hops. They smell like cinnamon/gingerrbread, i boiled the malt and steeped the hops for about 5 mins, tasted the wort and the hops were coming though pretty strong so left it as that. One final thing, i only have a strip thermometer and it was showing the temp at 26/28 deg and after testing the water with my finger(sanitised as can be) well it seems pretty cool to me, maybe that is 26 deg. Need to keep a didgital thermomter.

[boingy]

Well it's all done, sit back and wait now, it was meant to be a summer ale and showed it as pale lager colour in the picture although it seems pretty dark to me like newcastle brown ale - i doubt it will lighten up, i can tell already i will be dissapointed, i mean essentially your just drinking dark malty sugar, unless you brew a lager of course, i doun't see why a lot of brewers treat lager like a joke, i think lager is where the real art is at.So i had my first experience with hops. They smell like cinnamon/gingerrbread, i boiled the malt and steeped the hops for about 5 mins, tasted the wort and the hops were coming though pretty strong so left it as that. One final thing, i only have a strip thermometer and it was showing the temp at 26/28 deg and after testing the water with my finger(sanitised as can be) well it seems pretty cool to me, maybe that is 26 deg. Need to keep a didgital thermomter.

az, I surrender.
Good luck with the brewing.

[EoinMag]

Well it's all done, sit back and wait now, it was meant to be a summer ale and showed it as pale lager colour in the picture although it seems pretty dark to me like newcastle brown ale - i doubt it will lighten up, i can tell already i will be dissapointed, i mean essentially your just drinking dark malty sugar, unless you brew a lager of course, i doun't see why a lot of brewers treat lager like a joke, i think lager is where the real art is at.So i had my first experience with hops. They smell like cinnamon/gingerrbread, i boiled the malt and steeped the hops for about 5 mins, tasted the wort and the hops were coming though pretty strong so left it as that. One final thing, i only have a strip thermometer and it was showing the temp at 26/28 deg and after testing the water with my finger(sanitised as can be) well it seems pretty cool to me, maybe that is 26 deg. Need to keep a didgital thermomter.

It always looks darker in the fermenter, don't worry.

[Spud395]

Boiling the contents of the can will have darkened it considerably, I'm supprised you hadnt read that anywhere.

Re: the temp, your blood temp is around 37 deg so yeah it should feel a little cool.

[az77]

Just checked after a day, opened the fermenter a crack, lot of foam on top, smells strong i get the hops coming through, heavy malt as well, like a newcaslte brown ale!! I think it's working fine. Not sure how i will drink 40 pints of this heavy ale though, why would they have advertised it as a summer ale with a lager like picutre on the front?

[az77]

delete

[az77]

Does anyone want a free 40 pints of stout?

[Spud395]

It's dark because you boiled it!

[az77]

I am going to add elderflowers(muslin bag) to the wort for a day of so, i suppose this is equivalent to dry hopping? Now this may be a stupid question but can i somehow sterilize the EF's before i add them to the wort, maybe boil them first for a short time but that will really sap all their goodness right? Basically will the EF's likey add contaminents to the wort?

[Jolum]

Elderflower-lager-stout

[Spud395]