Just been musing over a few ideas and was fancying some experimentation.
I'm probably heading down the extract method of brewing but this brought me onto thinking what is in the kit.
I understood that the syrup in the cans was a mixture of concentrated malt extract with hops.... but the bitter kits that I've done, Brupaks and Stone wall have all come with extra hops that need steeping at the mixing stage....
I was thinking about trying to source some malt extract and hops to make a truly 'fair trade' beer..... sugar is easy to get hold of but malt and hops might be a little more tricky.
Dave.
So remind me - What is a kit
-
mysterio
I'm not sure there's a question in there...
There are top-end kits that come with extras like hops and malt that are added to freshen up the beer and give it the kind of malt & hop character you can only get by adding the ingredients at the time of brewing. There are other kits that have hop bittering & flavour compounds added, but i'm guessing by the nature of the manufacture and storage of these kits that you're not going to get as bright a hop character if you were an extract or all-grain brewer. If you're doing extract brewing, then you just have the unadulterated malt extract and you have to balance the bitterness and flavour with your own hops. Because it takes 30 - 90 minutes to extract a decent bitterness, it also means that you'll need a suitable way to boil the extract with hops.
There are top-end kits that come with extras like hops and malt that are added to freshen up the beer and give it the kind of malt & hop character you can only get by adding the ingredients at the time of brewing. There are other kits that have hop bittering & flavour compounds added, but i'm guessing by the nature of the manufacture and storage of these kits that you're not going to get as bright a hop character if you were an extract or all-grain brewer. If you're doing extract brewing, then you just have the unadulterated malt extract and you have to balance the bitterness and flavour with your own hops. Because it takes 30 - 90 minutes to extract a decent bitterness, it also means that you'll need a suitable way to boil the extract with hops.