I was lucky enough to win this kit in a recent competition, so thanks HBC - as I said when I found out I'd won a wheat beer, I was delighted as it's not a style I'd ever buy so it's expanding my horizons!
From start to finish I had my prep, mixing, pitching and cleanup done in under an hour so it's a really straightforward kit.
The kit came in a clear bag. It contained 1 set of instructions, two cans of wheat LME, 1 sachet of WB-06 wheat yeast & 1 bottle of hop addition - Bottle A, 30 IBU.
The instructions gave the feel that these kits are aimed at novice brewers or kit enthusiasts, so if the output is good then it's one of the simplest brews I'll have done in a long time. I say this because there was no mention of expected OG, FG or temp to maintain the FV at during fermentation. My OG was ~1040 seen in the photo below, and I have it set to ferment at 21
o in line with what the yeast strain recommends - I've just noticed the yeast was out of date since February... hope this doesn't affect the brew!!
So the process:
- Heat some water, leave the LME in it while cleaning and sanitising the FV, airlock, spoon etc etc.
- Assemble the FV and check it's not leaking at the tap - this has happened me before and it lost 5l of beer and made a smelly mess
- Boil ~3 litres of water (2l recommended in instructions but my tap water is very cold atm so didn't want to pitch the yeast too low.
- Add 1.5 - 2l boiling water to the FV
- Open the LME and pour it into the FV
- Rinse LME cans with remainder of boiled water and add that to FV
- Attach brewbelt & airlock
Overall, it was a really simple kit to assemble. Now to wait. I'll keep this updated with gravities, tasting notes etc as I go along.
The wort looked like I'd expect a wheat beer to look, so hopefully it'll develop the other key characteristics too.
If anyone can tell me how to comment on the photos I'll add captions...
Was wondering what Bottle A was. Couldn't find any info til I read this!
Taste it and see ;)
I bottled my Bruphoria Wait A Minute Where's My Wheat Beer? on Sunday night.
There was some explosive fermentation in the early phases and this is still visible in the photo of my airlock. My airlock is a hose with the STC sensor threaded through it, attached at one end to the FV by a piece of an old bottling stick, and at the other end submerged in a bowl of starsan.
To encourage clove & banana flavours I stepped my temperature up during fermentation from 21 to 22.5 to 24 over the course of the time the beer was in the FV (18 days).
FG was 1006 giving ~5% abv once the bottles have conditioned. I poured the gravity sample into a glass to taste and get an early look at the product. Note that the glass I used has a slightly blue tinge to it (IKEAs finest) so it somewhat distorts the colour of the beer.
The beer is very tasty even now; with strong clove tones - probably from the temperature steps. I used an online carbonation calculator that told me I needed 210g!!! of dextrose to carbonate in line with a German weiss. I thought this too high so primed with 150g dextrose in 200ml boiled water which I mixed into the brew by transferring the beer into a bottling bucket. If I'd carbonated in line with the instructions I would have used 20 teaspoons (about 100g). I got 39 bottles out of the brew; 40.5 if you consider 3 are 750ml as opposed to 500ml.
Once the brew is ready to pour in a few weeks I'll put up some pictures then.
Thanks again HBC for the prize. I'm really happy with how the kit turned out. Overall it was an easy kit to brew. The most difficult part (as always after an explosive fermentation) was cleaning the krausen ring and other crud off the FV.
Sounds like a winner.
Give those plastic bottles a squeeze every now and then to get a feel for how much extra carbonation you have.
Hi LordEoin,
I use plastics for two reasons... they're my "budgies" in that they tell me exactly that - when my beer is carbonated; and secondly, just like budgies down the mine, they die first - I drink them early and keep my glassware to further condition!
Eventually I'll move to corny's, but I don't have space for that at the moment :-\
'budgies', i like that! ;D
Strangely that reminds me of this...
https://youtu.be/dQEIYjS1ePY