Thinking of trying my first extract brew…..

[guitarsammy1]

I brewed from a kit (John Bull IPA) a few months back and am now considering moving onto my first extract brew.

My experience with the kit was good – I primary fermented in a standard plastic bin and airlock with the kit and some brewer’s sugar. I then put it into brown glass bottles with some brewer’s sugar and left to mature. It turned out well.

However, it did taste of “homebrew” and lacked hoppiness. My thinking is that if I brew from extract I can tailor it more to my own tastes, hopefully losing some of that homebrew flavour and increasing the hoppy notes. I do have a few questions, though:

- Would I need any more equipment other than a large stainless vessel to boil the wort on my stove and something to steep the hops in?
- Is it advisable to use campden tablets to reduce the chlorine content of the tapwater I’d be using?
- Can I replace my brewer’s sugar with malt (spray malt?) to improve flavour? Would I still need to put a small amount of sugar in the bottles to create some pressure, or could I put a bit of malt into the bottles too?

Any other tips gratefully received…….

[AllHailToTheAle]

Hi Sammy,

There will be people on here far better qualified to answer this than, but I'll guess I'll kick things off. I guess since you've done a kit, you must have all the equipment such as siphon, paddle, etc. In principle you could just get a stock pot to boil your wort, and you'll be sorted. There's loads of good advice available on here, but I'd also recommend getting a book. I have How To Brew by John Palmer, and it's excellent. It fills in knowledge gaps you might have otherwise. For example, you probably already know this, but important factors in producing good home brew include: thorough sanitation; using ingredients that are as fresh as possible (not old yeast or extract that's going out of date; cooling your wort as quickly as possible after the boil...

You don't have to get stainless steel. Aluminium is a bit cheaper, conducts heat better (less likely to suffer hot spots and therefore scortch the wort. It doesn't look as shiny as stainless and isn't as hard wearing.

If your water doesn't smell or taste of chlorine, or of any other off taste, then you don't need to do anything (sorry if I'm stating the obvious). I've not treated my water and forget what Campden tablets do to be honest.

You absolutely SHOULD replace the sugar with malt extract if possible, it provides a much better depth of flavour.

On the other hand, you can use malt or pretty much any other type of sugar for bottle conditioning, but it's not really necessary. It's much more important to use malt for the primary fermentation.

Hope this helps

[fatboylard]

Pretty much as the good dude said above.

If you look for a cheapish not too large stockpot on ebay that'll do as your copper. Most of my full length extract brews were done in a 7 litre pot - I simply boiled all of the hops with half of the extract and topped up/added the rest of the malt in the FV. A smaller pot gives you the advantage of being to cool the wort down quicker as well by sitting it in a sink full of cold water... and you can make an absolute sh*tload of chilli should the mood take you

You'll need a fine steeping bag to infuse speciality malts like crystal, chocolate, etc. You can pick one up from any good homebrew shop or make it out of strong voile type fabric and a bit of patience. As for hop socks, pop down to your local Tossco or Asbo with the missus (or a dirty old raincoat) and pick up some value tights. You can fill the end of one leg with hops, tie and snip then it's ready to chuck into the boiling wort, no filtering involved just fish out the bag when you're done.

Oh and another thing, when I started experimenting with kit brews I found that emptying a one can kit up into a stockpot with a bit of water and boiling for about 10 minutes before making it up with spraymalt helps to get rid of the homebrew 'twang' - I reckon it has something to do with flavours leeching out of the metal that they're canned in. Might even explain why Cooper's kits taste better since they use plastic lined tins

Cheers,

Another Sam

[Jocky]

I brewed from a kit (John Bull IPA) a few months back and am now considering moving onto my first extract brew.

My experience with the kit was good – I primary fermented in a standard plastic bin and airlock with the kit and some brewer’s sugar. I then put it into brown glass bottles with some brewer’s sugar and left to mature. It turned out well.

However, it did taste of “homebrew” and lacked hoppiness. My thinking is that if I brew from extract I can tailor it more to my own tastes, hopefully losing some of that homebrew flavour and increasing the hoppy notes. I do have a few questions, though:

- Would I need any more equipment other than a large stainless vessel to boil the wort on my stove and something to steep the hops in?
- Is it advisable to use campden tablets to reduce the chlorine content of the tapwater I’d be using?
- Can I replace my brewer’s sugar with malt (spray malt?) to improve flavour? Would I still need to put a small amount of sugar in the bottles to create some pressure, or could I put a bit of malt into the bottles too?

Any other tips gratefully received…….

After doing two kits (one was decent, one turned out awful), I jumped over to extract and have been much happier (and hoppier) with my beers. As for advice, I can only really echo what fatboy and AllHail have already said.

There's not really much of a difference between the two processes ingredients wise. Beer kits are basically hopped liquid malt extract, and some come with extra hops that you make a hop tea with. With extract you are just using unhopped malt extract and adding your own hops, and potentially some steeped grain. Much more flexible, and you can make very hoppy beer!

As fatboylard has pointed out above, actually the big difference with extract brewing is not to do with the ingredients, it's to do with boiling the wort/hops which drives off a lot of volatile nasties in your beer. You can do this with regular kits if you want to improve them.

As for your questions - I recommend a large stainless steel stock pot - aluminium is ok, but stainless is better as it doesn't oxidise. I have a very sturdy 19 litre one from a seller called homexis on ebay, which cost me £36 delivered (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Deep-Stock-Po ... 4aa726b45c). They also have bigger and smaller ones, but be warned, on my little gas cooker I only just get a good boil going with 11 litres in the pot. If you have a powerful stove, or one with a big ring you may fare better.

For water, yes, use campden tablets if you are using tap water if you can taste the chlorine in your tap water. Any weird tastes in your water will come through in your beer (but this is the same for kits too). Personally I buy a few 5 litre bottles of water from a super market (they're 90p each), use the water for the brew, and ferment in the empty bottles.

Don't use sugar unless you are doing a recipe that calls for it, or until you understand what it will do to your end beer. For your first couple of brews your ingredients should simply consist of malt extract, hops, water, some speciality grain and yeast.

And get a brewing book. How to Brew is a great starter - it was mine - and after reading several other books I still think it's the best starting point.

[darrellm]

Echo what everyone else had said. Although it's nice to occasionally do a 1/2 can kit for lager-type beers and stouts, if you want a hoppy ale then Extract is the way to go. Been very happy with all my brews since I made the jump, my latest was *exactly* like a good pub ale, and I got a mate to do a taste test with the beer it was a clone of, and he reckoned mine was better

I got one of these stock pots (15L) off eBay which seems fine, although could have probably got away with a slightly smaller one:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/STAINLESS-STE ... d=ViewItem

Never used Campden tablets, although the water round here has hardly any Chlorine in it, it was much more prominent at my old house.

BrewUK do a good range of Extract kits, as do others - just saves you the hassle of having to track down the ingredients and/or buy too much of things like hops. You do pay a bit more, but I'm more than happy to pay 70p a pint rather than 55/60p, for the huge increase in quality Can recommend the "Way To Amarillo" or "Exmoor Gold" as they're just dried malt extarct and hops, although I've done a kit with steeped grains and it's not that much more hassle.
http://www.brewuk.co.uk/store/beerkits/brewextract.html

Good luck, you won't regret it.

[Woodchip]

If you're too tight to buy the book "How To Bew by John Palmer" it is available as a website - http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html

[Norik]

If you're too tight to buy the book "How To Bew by John Palmer" it is available as a website - http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html

Just remember that the free online version is the 1st revision, and the actual book is now on Rev 3. Not sure how much of a differance it makes.

[Woodchip]

If you're too tight to buy the book "How To Bew by John Palmer" it is available as a website - http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html

Just remember that the free online version is the 1st revision, and the actual book is now on Rev 3. Not sure how much of a differance it makes.

Ah, that I wasn't aware off. That means I still have good reason to buy the book.