How to Improve your kit/prehopped can.

Firstly check the Use by Date and always buy freshest. Older kits develope an oxidised tang so avoid them if you can resist the “special”. It will take more ingredients to disguise. (too late? You’ve got a tang! A squeeze of lemon in your glass goes a long way to correcting unwelcome flavours)

Also, because the can is concentrated wort includes all the minerals from the condensed brew liquor so if you can avoid doubling up by using diluted water eg RO or leave your water in a container for a day to let minerals settle and draw off top 2/3rds only. Lastly, dissolve don’t boil the extract (ie below100c)as this can strip the hop essence included in the extract.

You can get lots of good ideas by googling the brand name of the kit and looking for recipes online,eg. Coopers, Morgans etc. Also the various user forums such as Williams Warn, JimsBeerKit.co.uk A surefire method is to drop the sugar and use dextrose, maltodextrine, light or dark dry malt or unhopped malt extracts in various combinations. Coopers and Mangrove Jacks make this easy for you with their Enhancer packets already mixed. Also in cans the Black Rock Unhopped kits,eg mix Creamy Brown with a Stout, yum.

In addition you can experiment by reducing the size of the brew,ie less water increases the flavours contributed by the kit eg, 18,15 or even 11 litres(eg Black Rock Oatmeal Stout). This is less expensive than doubling up on the kits.

Lets get more adventurous and try grains and hops. I am assuming that you will acquire your grain already milled. If not you’ll need to crush the quantity required. Either put in a paper or plastic back and roll over with something hard and heavy,eg champagne bottle or sodastream cylinder. Don’t use Mums rolling pin as it will probably be too soft and get little dents. Or pop a cupful of grain into a blender or spice mill and give a quick pulse. To add a bit of flavour and sweetness a crystal malt or caramel malt steeped in boiled water(ie 80 C) for 30 minutes and strained into the fermenter. For Roasty flavours use roast barley or black or chocolate malt steeped overnight in boiled cool (<45c) water. Don’t boil or you will get astringent flavours from the husks.

You may want to get adventurous and try a partial or minimash which just going through the mash steps with a small quantity in a pot on the stove. As it is much the same as the full mash it is a big subject which I’ll get to somewhere in the future. Basically let grain stand @65c in pot for an hour then strain into wort and boil.

Now about hop additions. We live in the age of hop bombs and many want to supercharge the hop flavours. These days hop pellets are the norm and are ideal for tweaking hop brews. There are hop essences but in my experience they add only bitters. If it is bitters you require boil the pellets 30 minutes in a pot or 10 minutes in a pressure cooker(in a bag). For flavour boil water wait 5 minutes and add hops and leave covered 1-2 hours then strain to fermenter. Dry hopping is the same as for All Grain. You can add by bag or loose a few days before bottling/kegging. Don’t complain to me about floaters. Try gelatine. I prefer to make a hop tea in a coffee plunger.

Lastly some thoughts about yeast and yeast starters. I don’t know why kit manufacturers insist on shooting themselves in the foot with plain vanilla yeast packets which don’t showcase the best features of the kit. I suggest you take a look at the yeasts available as some will surely give you a better beer, eg Safale W34/70 for Lagers is very forgiving. Liquid yeasts are all very nice but a rare beast and expensive. I always rehydrate my yeast a day or so before and make a starter with a spoon full of malt (if nothing to hand open the kit and dip in) in a breakfast cup of boiled water (28C). That way you can enjoy the security of a nice foamy yeast starter. If it doesn’t foam then you’ve saved yourself heart ache and can make another. Better a lost yeast packet than a whole brew.