my Kit made beer lacks body

[Paul_C]

i am in the process of bottling my first every brew of bitter-ale (or any beer) from a kit and the mouthfuls i am tasting as i siphon it from the fermention bucket whilst quite nice and perfectly drinkable lacks the depth of body flavour i am used to and to be honest prefer.



is this common across all kits? my father who last brewed in 1978 (this i know because his bottles that i have err borrowed are last marked with that date) has claimed that all kits taste watery to
some extent and is to be expected.

is it a case of it needs to mature for a while, the kit recomends 3 weeks, or is it simply the taste

i do notice the kit i had gave 2 recipies one for 40 pints and one for 33 pints. is it a case of less is more tastewise with such things and i should simply make slightly less for a more enjoyable taste?



my understanding of brewing is somewhat there, but am i correct with the assumption that the "beer" taste comes from the malt. if so hypotheticaly i could simply add an extra cansiter of malt to create a much more beery tasting beer with the same ammount of suger and water. would this work?

im not planning on doing the whole home micro brewery thing as i simply dont have the space for it so its going to be from kit. and my next plan is for a batch of lager so if my hypothetical above is correct then does it follow over to lager as well.

[clanpowell]

There are severl things you can do to improve body and overall taste. Maturing will definately help. As will the price of the kit. Generally speaking beer kits are better if you get a more expensive better quality one and they have improved vastly in the last 10-15 years. You can also get a beer kit improver, a sort of sugar you can add. You can also prime the bottle with a "tasty" sugar like demerara to improve body. I always add slightly less water than they say to on the instructions. If you add another can it will have a higher alcohol content which can cuase problems if you have yeast that can't operate at higher percentages. Hope this helps.

[Paul_C]

when i started it i used half (500g) granulated and half (500 gram) of a high grade demarara i had kicking around in my big box of baking stuffs.

the kit wasnt the cheepest it was iirc £15-£16 from wilkinsons but im going to jaunt to the brew shop in newton abbot sometime in the comming week, .

i am starting to think even more that the water is based around a hypothetical maximum that you can get away with and i should just reduce is from now on.

when i bottled i used plain granulated as frankly i have loads of the stuff however. does changing the sugar change it much? ie if i used honey, maple syrup, caster, icing etc how would it alter? i can imagin honey creating a much more earthy taste, maple smokeyish, caster light, and icing sickly.

[Green Aura]

I remember my brother making a kit way back (probably around the same time as your Dad's last brew! ). Due to a "technical error" he only ended up with 26 pints from a 40 pint kit.

I was too young at the time to partake of such goodies but I remember him getting very drunk, quite quickly.

Does that help?

[phil55494]

The othere thing you can try is instead of sugar, use what is called beer kit improver. It is a mix of glucose and dried malt extract. That should give you more body in the beer. Leaving your beer to mature in bottles is a good idea and you may find that if you drink some after the recommended 3 weeks it isn't as good as if you leave it for longer. Putting less water (23l instead of 30l) will give you a stronger beer and one with more body, all other things being equal.

As a final comment, don't dismiss making beer from malt and hops because you don't think you have space for a traditional homebrew setup. I don't either and make very printable beer in the kitchen with not much more than a big (15l) pan and bucket.

[phil55494]

Printable beer??? Where did that come from? The joy of self correcting predictive text input on mobile phones.

[frozenthunderbolt]

Use two kits to make up your X pints, then take a reading with a hydrometer and calculate how much sugar to add to bring it up to the alcohol level you desire. Google "distiller forum" (or one of the innumerable other home brew type forums) and you are bound to find calculators people have made that will allow you to do this.

[wulf]

I've begun getting back into homebrewing recently after a long lay-off.

Brew 1: a kit (Geordie Scottish Export) made according to the instructions, including use of granulated cane sugar. The results were okay but had a bit of the dreaded "home-brew tang" and were also very carbonated (much more head than beer unless you are very careful about pouring). The few bottles I have left are getting better though (bottling was about 6 months ago).

Brew 2: another kit (Young's Mild) but brewed to a "shorter length" (bringing the liquid volume to 32 pints rather than 40 pints at the start of fermentation and using 50/ 50 dark spray malt / brewing sugar as the sugar additive). The result was a very dark beer which was more like stout than mild but full bodied. Worthwhile tweaks, although light spray malt might have been a better choice for a mild result.

Brew 3: a small attempt at Brew in a Bag. I didn't end up with much over ten pints but the taste and body were great and I also found my beer-tasting palette was improved from having dealt directly with malt and hops. This is the route I'm likely to use for most future brews although I might see if I can scale up to a slightly larger end volume.

I'd discount doing another kit with regular sugar but would definitely consider using one with dried malt extract and perhaps some brewing sugar instead. I might also experiment with using a tin of liquid malt extract for volume but tweaking the flavour with the addition of some homemade wort as a way of getting more volume without having to invest in more brewing gear.

Wulf