Review - Geterbrewed Craft a Beer Light Review

[Vermelho]

Thank you very much to to Geterbrewed for this! So the craft a beer kit is the new feature on their website and I tried twice now in preparation for ordering my kit. I decided I wanted to brew a Saison and the following were my ingredients chosen:

1. Light malt extract
2. Hop bitterness 30 IBUs
3. Hop Selection - EKG, Sorachi Ace and Nelson Sauvin
4. Yeast - Wyeast 3724
5. Flavourings - Coriander
6. Priming Sugar - None needed

If I was ordering through the online system I would've said it was good although the Hop bitterness needs to be explained better (more on that later). The hop selection is excellent and it's great that you can choose from any of the yeasts via the text box although this might become annoying as you need to make sure the yeasts are in stock. I think the ordering system could still use some refinement and some better user experience detailing, it's still the best available to us though.

The ingredients arrived and I unpacked the following:

- 2 cans of Muntons light extract (2017 expiry so I assume fresh)
- a 30 IBU hop extract which I wasn't expecting. I thought they would just be hop pellets but come to think of it this wouldn;t work and the bitterness extract makes sense.
- 60 g of hop pellets vac packed. When opened I found these were in hop tea bags and unlabelled. I originally chose EKG as I thought I'd be adding it as the bitterness hop but it seems the hop choice is only for dry hopping.
- Yeast
- Coriander seeds
- Instructions

To this I also added 300g of sugar and 400g of honey to dry it out.

So after I unpacked all these I read the instructions and realised this is a no boil kit! Now this is my fault as there is a link to the instructions on the order page but can I suggest that an overview of the instructions should be placed on the first page of the ordering process so it's clear. Anyway, the instructions were clear and well written but I decided I wanted to boil the wort briefly for some late hop addition flavour and the coriander seed. I boiled 10l of water and added the cans of wort for 15 mins, adding the sugar and coriander on 10 mins remaining and the hops at 5 mins. I cooled the wort wort by topping up to 23l which brought it to 45C so I let it cool outside for another few hours. When it cooled I added the honey to the primary.

Prior to this I had prepared a 3l starter for the 3724. I had never used this yeast before and soon learned that it starts quickly but soon stalls at less than 28C. Anyway, I let the starter do it's thing for 3 days and then crash cooled, poured off the excess wort and pitched (saving some yeast for reuse). I pitched the yeast relatively high at 25C and attached the brew belt. It took off like a rocket but slowed after 48 hours and I ramped up the brew belt to 28C and it's been sitting there for just under 3 weeks. It's now down to 1.010 but I really want it to drop more so I'll give it another few days before bottling.

I've been tasting as I go and it's turning out really really good, excellent deep saison flavour. Hopefully I'll have it ready for Xmas now.

So overall the process has been very easy, if you were to follow the instructions it would be even easier and less work to do. I'll report back in 2 weeks or so and let you know how it turned out.

[@geterbrewed]

Thank you very much to to Geterbrewed for this! So the craft a beer kit is the new feature on their website and I tried twice now in preparation for ordering my kit. I decided I wanted to brew a Saison and the following were my ingredients chosen:

1. Light malt extract
2. Hop bitterness 30 IBUs
3. Hop Selection - EKG, Sorachi Ace and Nelson Sauvin
4. Yeast - Wyeast 3724
5. Flavourings - Coriander
6. Priming Sugar - None needed

If I was ordering through the online system I would've said it was good although the Hop bitterness needs to be explained better (more on that later). The hop selection is excellent and it's great that you can choose from any of the yeasts via the text box although this might become annoying as you need to make sure the yeasts are in stock. I think the ordering system could still use some refinement and some better user experience detailing, it's still the best available to us though.

The ingredients arrived and I unpacked the following:

- 2 cans of Muntons light extract (2017 expiry so I assume fresh)
- a 30 IBU hop extract which I wasn't expecting. I thought they would just be hop pellets but come to think of it this wouldn;t work and the bitterness extract makes sense.
- 60 g of hop pellets vac packed. When opened I found these were in hop tea bags and unlabelled. I originally chose EKG as I thought I'd be adding it as the bitterness hop but it seems the hop choice is only for dry hopping.
- Yeast
- Coriander seeds
- Instructions

To this I also added 300g of sugar and 400g of honey to dry it out.

So after I unpacked all these I read the instructions and realised this is a no boil kit! Now this is my fault as there is a link to the instructions on the order page but can I suggest that an overview of the instructions should be placed on the first page of the ordering process so it's clear. Anyway, the instructions were clear and well written but I decided I wanted to boil the wort briefly for some late hop addition flavour and the coriander seed. I boiled 10l of water and added the cans of wort for 15 mins, adding the sugar and coriander on 10 mins remaining and the hops at 5 mins. I cooled the wort wort by topping up to 23l which brought it to 45C so I let it cool outside for another few hours. When it cooled I added the honey to the primary.

Prior to this I had prepared a 3l starter for the 3724. I had never used this yeast before and soon learned that it starts quickly but soon stalls at less than 28C. Anyway, I let the starter do it's thing for 3 days and then crash cooled, poured off the excess wort and pitched (saving some yeast for reuse). I pitched the yeast relatively high at 25C and attached the brew belt. It took off like a rocket but slowed after 48 hours and I ramped up the brew belt to 28C and it's been sitting there for just under 3 weeks. It's now down to 1.010 but I really want it to drop more so I'll give it another few days before bottling.

I've been tasting as I go and it's turning out really really good, excellent deep saison flavour. Hopefully I'll have it ready for Xmas now.

So overall the process has been very easy, if you were to follow the instructions it would be even easier and less work to do. I'll report back in 2 weeks or so and let you know how it turned out.

Thankyou for the impressive review, I'll be taking on board all of your comments and hope to make this service the best option in the country for beer kits so watch the improvements in the coming weeks

[Vermelho]

Just an update on this. The gravity levelled off at 1.009 so I bottled half the batch and kegged the other half just before Xmas. I ended up with a 4.8% saison and I have to say it was excellent! I had a couple of friends over after Xmas and they polished of the keg in under 2 hours and the reviews were very positive. I've been savouring the bottles as much as I can and have about 5 left which I will try keep my hands off until spring proper.

Overall I would have to say that the process was really easy and well instructed by geterbrewed. I would highly recommend both the craft-a-beer-kit process and the product. I am normally an all grain brewer but this process has me thinking twice from now on after producing such good results. I think I'll be doing a half all grain and half extract from now on to save time.