[Review] - HBC American Lager

[fishjam45 (Colin)]

Firstly, thanks to thehomebrewcompany.ie for sponsoring this raffle and POB for organising it. 

I intended on brewing outside yesterday (5th July 2015) but the weather was less than suitable so inside my front door was the chosen spot.

This is the first lager that I've brewed by myself and I wanted to wait until I had a fermentation fridge up and running properly before I did it.
As this was my first lager done alone I was eager to read the instructions fully before brewday, which meant opening the packaging on Saturday.  This led to my first point of review of the mashkit.  The instructions were sealed in a bag that was loose within the crushed grain, therefore to see the instructions the crushed grain was exposed to the air needlessly.  ALso, I received the bag a couple of weeks ago and would liked to have been able to put the hops and yeast in the fridge until needed for brewing.
1) - I would suggest packaging the kit in a way that allows the user to access the instructions and hops without exposing the grain to the air.
2) - The bag could also be presented a little better - maybe a HBC logo or sticker to help advertisement?

Anyway, what was in the kit? Precrushed grain (lager malt & flaked rice), Hops (Hallertauer Hersbrucker), Yeast (Brewferm Lager Yeast), Instructions and Whirlfloc. (I had to refer to the HBC website to see exactly what the grain & hops were as they were not listed on the instructions.)

With regards to the instructions:
I liked the last 2 points as they explained why the 90 min boil and why the lower mash temperature.  Would I change anything on them? Yes
3) - List what types of grains and hops are included.
4) - List the hop additions so no plastic bags of hops may find there way into the mashtun accidentally.  I was a little unsure if there was only one or more hop additions.
5) - This is probably just for grainfather users. List the grain bill weight, I changed my mash and sparge water volumes to suit my grainfather as per their instructions.  I weighed and got 4.8 kg = 16.46 litres mash & 15.38 litres sparge.
6) - Again, back to presentation, the instructions are a little bland.  A HBC logo again could help.
7) - Referring to the picture, Mash temp is mentioned twice once at 64 degrees and secondly at 65 degrees.  The instructions need to be edited to clear up exactly what temperature is required to mash at.  I went with 65 degrees.

Preboil Volume: 29 Litres
Into Fermentor: 22 Litres
OG: 1054

I will post updates as required.

Heres my pictures of yesterdays brew day:

[armedcor]

i'm more and more interested in the grainfather wish i had the spare rainy day cash

Great pics and write up!

[Greg2013]

I would hazzard a guess and say that is flaked maize not flaked rice,it  looks exactly the same as what i use to feed the chooks(i hasten to add obviously food grade processing used here).

I totally agree the packing needs an overhaul only in that maybe bag the grain seperate then put that bag into an outer and throw the hops etc in between the two,that way the hops and yeast can be stored properly without opening the grain bag,should be easy enough to do ?

However having brewed several of these kits in the past and found them excellent(especially the Kraken) i have to agree the instructions are far too generic and confusing and were it not that i used Beersmith anyway and just threw out the instructions then i would have been lost,they need to be laid out step by step akin to a Beersmith recipe except no weights mentioned(for obvious reasons).

[pob]

+2 on the weight of the grainbill. Doesn't need grain by grain breakdown, just the overall weight for BeerSmith (or similar) will do, e.g. 4.6kg, so you can calculate strike vols & temp.
Sheet with number of hop additions would be easy to produce (prevents mash hopping)

[Greg2013]

+2 on the weight of the grainbill. Doesn't need grain by grain breakdown, just the overall weight for BeerSmith (or similar) will do, e.g. 4.6kg, so you can calculate strike vols & temp.
Sheet with number of hop additions would be easy to produce (prevents mash hopping)

Good point on the weight of grain bill for BS and similar,on the other hand it is easy enough to weigh the grains yourself which is what i did and used that for Beersmith.The hop additions would be handy to have listed as well as an indication of what IBU you should be looking for,like i said great little kits just the instructions could be in step by step format so you don't have any mixups come brewday,also because if you cant access your brewing software on the brewday you are kind of left high and dry without step by step instructions.

[Leann ull]

Guys stating any grain or hop types or weights on any prepacked pack negates the value of the pack and the effort that went into formulating it in the first place, most of those packs are version 3 or 4.
Do you have a weighing scales

[Greg2013]

Guys stating any grain or hop types or weights on any prepacked pack negates the value of the pack and the effort that went into formulating it in the first place, most of those packs are version 3 or 4.
Do you have a weighing scales

Fair point,why go to all that effort if you are just going to put it out there for anyone to replicate,would make the whole prcoess of formulation rather pointless i suppose,like i said i weighed the grains myself and the hops and it was not that difficult to bung it into Beersmith to get all the proper settings.

[armedcor]

Bit different I know but some american shops like Northern Brewer have all their kits details on the website. Shows all grains and amounts as well as hops.

I think the main advantage of these kits for a lot of people is no left over grains/hops etc, well for me anyway. There's thousands of recipes online if I just wanted a recipe.

[Paul B]

Guys stating any grain or hop types or weights on any prepacked pack negates the value of the pack and the effort that went into formulating it in the first place, most of those packs are version 3 or 4.
Do you have a weighing scales

Have to disagree. This is amateur homebrewing and recipe sharing is a big part of the process, learning and fun imo. I'm sure the recipes aren't that unique, and are based on plenty of existing well known ones. It's probably the main reason I've stopped buying these kits as I want to know what's going in the brew and how I can tweak it next time.

Anyway nice review and nice grainfather

[Bubbles]

Guys stating any grain or hop types or weights on any prepacked pack negates the value of the pack and the effort that went into formulating it in the first place, most of those packs are version 3 or 4.
Do you have a weighing scales

We were discussing this at the last SDB meet. On one hand, I understand that these are solid, tried and trusted recipes. On the other hand I'm wondering why the American HB shops give a breakdown of the grain bill and hops and the Irish shops don't? Is a recipe really that valuable? Are there home brewers out there that think "well I can't come up with a recipe as good as X so I'll have to keep buying it from the LHBS."? Fair play to the home brew shops if so..

[fishjam45 (Colin)]

I would hazzard a guess and say that is flaked maize not flaked rice,it  looks exactly the same as what i use to feed the chooks(i hasten to add obviously food grade processing used here).

You are probably right but I quoted directly from their website, see https://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/hbc-american-lager-mashkit-23lt-p-1698.html

[fishjam45 (Colin)]

5) - This is probably just for grainfather users. List the grain bill weight, I changed my mash and sparge water volumes to suit my grainfather as per their instructions.  I weighed and got 4.8 kg = 16.46 litres mash & 15.38 litres sparge.

just my tuppence on the above debate/conversation:

As i said above, the reason that I would want to know the weight is because I use a Grainfather. Knowing the weight lets you work out specific water to suit the Grain Father.  I suggest they add the weight to the recipe for this reason.  If you buy a pre-crushed kit I presume you wouldnt want to have to start needlessly weighing it when the supplier already knows the weight.

I can fully appreciate why anybody or any business would not want to share their recipe's ingredients, but they do list the grain and hops on their website so they are not hiding anything.

[Greg2013]

Maybe it is flaked rice i am not sure,its just it looks like  flaked maize is all from handling that a lot i mean. As to the weight of the grain bill issue i am of the opinion that there really is no need for them to state the weight of the grain bill since any home brewer worth his/her salt should be in possession of a scales and i always weigh the grain myself anyway.

[armedcor]

I think the thing is they shouldn't have to have the scales. These kits are all about convience. It doesn't hurt thethe companu to write an extra few characters on the instructions.

[delzep]

Making sure the correct yeast is in the kit is more important than putting the weight on the bag - I got two dunkel kits that came with gervin gv12