Thursday, November 5, 2009

Let's Take A Closer Look At Homebrew Kits

By Luke Porter

With all the right tools, equipment, supplies, hops, and tidbits included in homebrew kits... they are perfect for people to start brewing their own beer from the comfort of their own home. When starting out, you just want to first get to a point of brewing good tasting beer, and you can't go wrong with a kit.

The most basic kit you can purchase is an extract kit that includes a standard beer type that you might find in any old bottle shop. When you get a kit like that, you first need to set yourself up to fully clean and sanitize all the equipment that you will be using to brew your beer... this includes all pots, pans, tools, and even the fermentation container. If you don't properly clean and sanitize all your equipment, you run the risk of brewing a bad batch, and you definitely don't want that! Most homebrew kits come with instructions, but they are for the most part useless, so be sure to get yourself a good beer brewing guide before you get your kit.

All hombrew kits are essentially the same in regards to the ingredients. You will get some malt extract, hops, yeast, and that's about it. Usually if you wan to experiment with flavors, you will need to change the extract that you use and you may even use different sugars to get different consistencies within your beer.

If you don't think the all-extract kit is challenging enough for you or you suddenly feel the monotony of your beer, you could up your hobby to another level by getting a partial mash kit. Here, other grains are added throughout the processing stage and other materials are added to your kit. But this is where you would really learn to value your creation. Of course, the all-extract kit is still a personal creation but as you have nothing to do with the formulation, you can't really call your beer your own. You would still taste the brand of the company that sold you your kit. But with the partial mash, you can start to pretend that you're the first to discover your recipe, because in actuality you are.

The hops are what determine the bitterness of your brew. You can then add the hops later in intervals to give your mix the difference from your neighbor's - who also has an all-extract kit - beer. To give you a better ambiance while pouring youself a drink, some kits even have a keg system instead of the usual bottles.

Eventually, you'd get the hang of brewing beer from your kits. You want to experiment more, do more than your ingredients or your materials would allow or you would even want to decide to graduate your hobby to beer fanaticism or better, to a commercial brewery. But whatever extent you want to bring yourself to, start it first with the good old trusty homebrew kits.

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