Cheap Basic Kits

[Beer engine]

Hi everyone. As most of us can appreciate some top of the range beer kits can be quite expensive. costing anything from £15 to £25 in some cases. although these are very good kits much can be done by buying cheaper kits. basic homebrew kits can be bought costing little more than £5 (Brewmaker Essential Beer Kits) If like me you like alot of body in your beer use 2 kits to make 40 pints no extra suger required. In efect all you are doing is adding more malt. This makes the total cost of £10 for 40 pints of very good full bodied beer.

[davidson]

I have thought about doing the same beer engine. With lager is there a big difference between the 'cheap' kits and the more expensive ones?

[Jim]

The only problem with mixing two kits like that is you get twice the bitterness from the hops. Probably still better than adding a load of sugar, though!

[Beer engine]

Hi Davidson. I cant coment on lager as i only brew stout and mild kits. but i find all buget priced kits to be very bland in taste and body and putting two kits together makes a very heavly bodied beer with alot of taste. somthing i havent been able to get from expensive kits. I think what im trying to say is add malt not sugar. try it you wont be disapointed. give it a go.............

[davidson]

I usually add DME and brewing sugar to my kits to get more body into the lager. I was wondering whether 2 cheap kits would be better than 1 mid priced kit with DME and brewing sugar.

[sparky Paul]

In efect all you are doing is adding more malt.

You are to a point, the problem with the really cheap kits is that they are not all malt - most of them are adulterated with a fair proportion of barley syrup, which does not give anything like the same results as malt.

That said, I have done just that myself - two kits in one brew - and the results were pretty good, although I did use the slightly dearer all-malt kits. You have to bear in mind that, as Jim says, the properties of the beer will change, and it will be nothing like the brew the kits were intended to make. I used two cheap bitter kits, and the result was something approaching a sweet stout, it was very dark indeed. I suspect a lager would be similarly much darker.

In most cases, I would rather recommend adding spraymalt to improve a cheap kit, after all 1Kg of spraymalt is only £4.50 from my favourite online supplier. That way, you are preserving the balance of the beer you are making whilst adding body and malt flavour.

[bettyswallocks]

I mixed a geordie mild and bitter kit together once and made up 55 - 60 pints and brewed it in 2 buckets. Turned out quite dark but not over hopped as it would just making 40.
cheers