[Review] - Get'er Brewed 'Craft a Beer' Wheat

[Parky]

Disclaimer – Thanks to Get'er Brewed for the opportunity to review this kit. I won the kit in a NHC raffle and was asked to review the product, but I have no direct association with Get'er Brewed.

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The 'Craft a Beer' kit is a customisable no-boil beer kit, from te Get'er Brewed homebrew shop, which aims to give brewers all the convenience of a regular kit brew, but with a wider range of options in terms of ingredients and additions.

The idea is really simple - log on to their website and choose what type of extract you want as a base for your brew, then choose a bittering level, hop varieties, yeast, and any flavour additions, (such as orange peel), you think might add that winning touch to your beer.

Building the kit -
The base extracts available include light, amber, dark, and wheat, so there's plenty of scope there for creating a wide variety of beer styles. As a big fan of wheat beer I chose the wheat malt, planning to create a German hefeweissen, but didn't see many hops suited to that style in the selection available, so decided to make an American wheat beer instead.

When building the kit using the online interface I chose –

Extract - Wheat malt extract (3kg Munton's LME);
Bittering - 30 IBUs of bittering extract;
Hops – Citra and Amarillo (60 grams of pelletized hops in hop tea bags);
Yeast – Safale US-05
Additions – Cuaracao orange peel;
Priming Sugar – Dextrose powder.

The plus points 
- A similar 'build your own kit' is available from another home brew shop, but this one provides a lot more variety in terms of ingredients and options for building your unique creation.
- A wide selection of yeast is available, including liquid yeast, which can take any kit a step above the usual brew.
- The online interface allows you to choose each ingredient type in turn, so there's no fussing around the site looking for various ingredients, or checking whether they're in stock.

The minus points
- I didn't see on the 'craft a beer' interface any indication of how much beer each kit actually makes – I presumed 23L.
- The minimum bittering level recommended is 30 IBUs, although in my experience the majority of beer styles will have lower levels of bittering.
- It's unclear how much hops, priming sugar, or other additions will come with the kit.

What I would do differently
- Provide more information about the product up front, for example, something as simple as how much beer each kit makes, and how much of each ingredient is shipped with the kit.
- Provide a graduated syringe for accurately measuring out the bittering extract.

[Parky]

Brewing the beer -

The kit duly arrived a few days after ordering and was well packaged, and the ingredients protected. As can be seen from the picture each ingredient was clearly labelled, indicating what each component was, and when it was to be added to the brew. The kit also came with some pretty detailed, but easy to follow instructions (although in places they may need a second run through the spelling and grammar checker  ).




Brew day was an absolute breeze, and was done and dusted in 40 minutes (including all sanitation and cleanup). The procedure involved should be very familiar to those who've brewed kits before –

1. Add 3L of boiling water to the fermenter and stir in the 3kg of malt extract to dissolve.
2. Top up to 23L with cold water, aiming for a temperature of 18-22 degrees C.
3. Add the isomerised hop extract and any other additions as per instructions on the packets.
4. Take a hydrometer reading to determine the original gravity of the beer.
5. Aerate the wort and add the yeast, before sealing up the fermenter.
6. Hops were added after 10 days in the form of hop tea bags and remained in the fermenter for 4 days.
7. Once the gravity of the beer was stable I bottled the beer using the priming sugar provided.
8. Stored the beer in a warm place to carbonate for one week, later moving to a cooler location to condition for two weeks.

The plus points
- Very quick and straightforward brewday, guided by the easy-to-follow instructions.
- All the ingredients were well labelled, and it was very clear at what time each should be added to the brew.
- Hops were packed in a vac sealed bag, so easy to store and keep fresh until brewday.

The minus points 
- I wanted the American wheat beer I was brewing to have a bittering level of 17 IBUs, and had to make an educated guess as to how much of the bittering extract that came with the kit (30 IBUs) I was to add.
- The priming sugar provided was only 160g, and wasn't enough to achieve the 2.6 vols I was looking for. (It certainly wouldn't have been near enough for the 3.0 vols suited to a German wheat beer).
- I wasn't a big fan of the hop tea bags provided for a number of reasons –

1. First, I'd ordered citra and Amarillo, but it wasn't clear which of the 3 hop tea bags contained either, or whether they were mixed, or in what proportion.
2. Second, the instructions indicated the hop bags should be soaked in a cup of boiling water before being added to the brew, but a single bag soaked up the entire cup.
3. Also, the hop tea bags didn't have much room for hop expansion, completely filling when hydrated, with no room for the hops to circulate. This in turn caused issues when they were added to the FV, at the dry hopping stage, as they simply floated on top of the brew, with half the hops in the air.

What I would do differently
- Again, a graduated syringe would help fine-tune the bittering addition.
- Provide a fine mesh bag with the hops (maybe as an optional extra) which would overcome the issues I experienced with the hop tea bags.

[Parky]

The end result –




Fermentation went well at 18 degrees C, with the gravity dropping from 1.040 to 1.009, giving a final ABV of 4.6% (including 0.5% for the priming sugar addition). The final product, although clean and refreshing, lacked a little something in terms of body, flavour, and aroma, which didn't reflect the 60 grams of citrusy hops used in dry hopping.

Some tasting notes –

Aroma – Low level of malt aroma, faint hops.
Appearance – Slightly hazy light amber colour with small white head which did not remain.
Flavour – Little if any hop flavour, and lacking in overall flavour and character.
Mouthfeel – Very light bodied, with medium carbonation.
Overall impression – Not much character or flavour to this beer, and lacking the hop flavour required to balance the lightness of the body.

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Summing up -

It's nice to see some creative thinking from Get'er Brewed in coming up with the 'craft a beer' approach, as I really like the idea of a no-boil custom beer kit.

However, there were some limitations to the approach, which I'm sure could be improved upon over time. Case in point is the simple German Hefeweissen - a good beer for beginners, but not possible to make here – for this style, there simply weren't enough fermentables in the 3kg of LME to achieve the appropriate ABV, minimum bittering level (30 IBUs) was too high, limited hop selection, and not enough priming sugar was provided.

The beer styles that can be brewed using this approach as it currently stands are very limited, and seem to lean towards hoppy pale ales. So it's not actually possible to clone your favourite beer if it happens to be Newcastle Brown Ale, for example.

Also, my experience was that the hop tea bags just didn't do the job intended. Sixty grams of citrusy hops in a dry hopping of 23L is not an insubstantial amount, but the flavour was lacking in the end product. Hop contact with the beer was limited by the hops having no room to circulate in the hop tea bags, and the hop bags floating with half the hops in the air didn't help matters  .

For the future -

- A nice idea for the future might be to provide example recipes that are tried and trusted. Not knowing what quantities of ingredients are being provided with the kit means that trying to put together a decent brew could be a bit of a shot in the dark.

- Another idea may be to include an option to add steeping grains or additional fermentables to the mix. The current kits rely solely on the 3kg of LME to provide the malt character and fermentable sugars, but a steeping grains option would certainly add to the complexity and quality of the final product.

Would I brew it again? 

As I say, I like the idea of a custom beer kit, but this one is too limited for me. At the end of the day the process is really not all that different from ordering the ingredients individually on the website, and the options (in the current form) suit only a narrow range of beer styles. For now I think I'll stick with brewing some of the no boil recipes on the Coopers website as there's a nice variety of good quality recipes available, and expanding all the time.

[Leann ull]

One day all reviews will be like this, nice job!

[Blueshed]

 Very impressive review 👍

[@geterbrewed]

Disclaimer – Thanks to Get'er Brewed for the opportunity to review this kit. I won the kit in a NHC raffle and was asked to review the product, but I have no direct association with Get'er Brewed.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The 'Craft a Beer' kit is a customisable no-boil beer kit, from te Get'er Brewed homebrew shop, which aims to give brewers all the convenience of a regular kit brew, but with a wider range of options in terms of ingredients and additions.

The idea is really simple - log on to their website and choose what type of extract you want as a base for your brew, then choose a bittering level, hop varieties, yeast, and any flavour additions, (such as orange peel), you think might add that winning touch to your beer.

Building the kit -
The base extracts available include light, amber, dark, and wheat, so there's plenty of scope there for creating a wide variety of beer styles. As a big fan of wheat beer I chose the wheat malt, planning to create a German hefeweissen, but didn't see many hops suited to that style in the selection available, so decided to make an American wheat beer instead.

When building the kit using the online interface I chose –

Extract - Wheat malt extract (3kg Munton's LME);
Bittering - 30 IBUs of bittering extract;
Hops – Citra and Amarillo (60 grams of pelletized hops in hop tea bags);
Yeast – Safale US-05
Additions – Cuaracao orange peel;
Priming Sugar – Dextrose powder.

The plus points 
- A similar 'build your own kit' is available from another home brew shop, but this one provides a lot more variety in terms of ingredients and options for building your unique creation.
- A wide selection of yeast is available, including liquid yeast, which can take any kit a step above the usual brew.
- The online interface allows you to choose each ingredient type in turn, so there's no fussing around the site looking for various ingredients, or checking whether they're in stock.

The minus points
- I didn't see on the 'craft a beer' interface any indication of how much beer each kit actually makes – I presumed 23L.
- The minimum bittering level recommended is 30 IBUs, although in my experience the majority of beer styles will have lower levels of bittering.
- It's unclear how much hops, priming sugar, or other additions will come with the kit.

What I would do differently
- Provide more information about the product up front, for example, something as simple as how much beer each kit makes, and how much of each ingredient is shipped with the kit.
- Provide a graduated syringe for accurately measuring out the bittering extract.

Thankyou very much for the impressive review, a lot of constructive points which I feel will be very easily addressed in conjunction with other feedback we have received.

We will be offering a larger selection of hops to cover all beer styles, the IBU's will also be offered in a wider variety and I will ask for the user interface to have more information

[@geterbrewed]

The end result –




Fermentation went well at 18 degrees C, with the gravity dropping from 1.040 to 1.009, giving a final ABV of 4.6% (including 0.5% for the priming sugar addition). The final product, although clean and refreshing, lacked a little something in terms of body, flavour, and aroma, which didn't reflect the 60 grams of citrusy hops used in dry hopping.

Some tasting notes –

Aroma – Low level of malt aroma, faint hops.
Appearance – Slightly hazy light amber colour with small white head which did not remain.
Flavour – Little if any hop flavour, and lacking in overall flavour and character.
Mouthfeel – Very light bodied, with medium carbonation.
Overall impression – Not much character or flavour to this beer, and lacking the hop flavour required to balance the lightness of the body.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Summing up -

It's nice to see some creative thinking from Get'er Brewed in coming up with the 'craft a beer' approach, as I really like the idea of a no-boil custom beer kit.

However, there were some limitations to the approach, which I'm sure could be improved upon over time. Case in point is the simple German Hefeweissen - a good beer for beginners, but not possible to make here – for this style, there simply weren't enough fermentables in the 3kg of LME to achieve the appropriate ABV, minimum bittering level (30 IBUs) was too high, limited hop selection, and not enough priming sugar was provided.

The beer styles that can be brewed using this approach as it currently stands are very limited, and seem to lean towards hoppy pale ales. So it's not actually possible to clone your favourite beer if it happens to be Newcastle Brown Ale, for example.

Also, my experience was that the hop tea bags just didn't do the job intended. Sixty grams of citrusy hops in a dry hopping of 23L is not an insubstantial amount, but the flavour was lacking in the end product. Hop contact with the beer was limited by the hops having no room to circulate in the hop tea bags, and the hop bags floating with half the hops in the air didn't help matters  .

For the future -

- A nice idea for the future might be to provide example recipes that are tried and trusted. Not knowing what quantities of ingredients are being provided with the kit means that trying to put together a decent brew could be a bit of a shot in the dark.

- Another idea may be to include an option to add steeping grains or additional fermentables to the mix. The current kits rely solely on the 3kg of LME to provide the malt character and fermentable sugars, but a steeping grains option would certainly add to the complexity and quality of the final product.

Would I brew it again? 

As I say, I like the idea of a custom beer kit, but this one is too limited for me. At the end of the day the process is really not all that different from ordering the ingredients individually on the website, and the options (in the current form) suit only a narrow range of beer styles. For now I think I'll stick with brewing some of the no boil recipes on the Coopers website as there's a nice variety of good quality recipes available, and expanding all the time.

Thanks again for another very helpful post on our Craft a Beer range, I do believe the yeast choice of us05 may have been the wrong yeast for wheat LME and may have affected the flavour

I will be adding lots of new yeasts and hops to the custom options selection allowing you to brew any beer style

The hop tea bags have recently been reduced in size which allows the hops to infuse better but I like your idea of adding a nylon hop bag to the kit so Ill work on sourcing small nylon bags for the job

If anyone wants steeping grains added in the meantime simply add a note in the comment box at checkout, if your wanting say 250g of Carapils as a body builder we'll happily add that foc

[LordEoin]

if the us05 were subbed out for wb06 it'd probably bring the whole thing together

[Parky]

@geterbrewed - Thanks for the comments, great to see a company that's open to customer feedback and is bringing something new to the world of home brewing. I'm sure we'll see great things with the 'Craft a Beer' product in the future, and I wish you all the best with this new endeavour 

I do believe the yeast choice of us05 may have been the wrong yeast for wheat LME and may have affected the flavour

if the us05 were subbed out for wb06 it'd probably bring the whole thing together

For sure the WB-06 makes a lovely German wheat beer, and it's my go-to dry yeast for a hefeweissen, but an American wheat beer is a different beastie entirely, requiring a clean American ale yeast, or lager yeast. Anchor Summer Beer is a nice example of the style if you want to check it out, and it's available in most good offies 

[LordEoin]

ah ok. i didn't realize you were after an american style