[Review] Craft Range Wheat Beer

[johnrm]

Thanks to www.homebrewwest.ie and Lord Eoin for sorting this out.
I apologise for the delay in reviewing!



The Kit is well presented in a sturdy box containing al the ingredients for your batch less bottling sugar...
1. Instructions
2. Wheat Extract Pouch
3. Liquid Malt Extract Pouch
4. German Wheat Yeast



Aside form the fact that the malt comes in a pouch, the process is your standard kit process...
Sit pouches in hot water for the recommended 15 mins.


Sanitise, sanitise, sanitise - Fermenter, Airlock, Paddle etc.

Pour the Malt pouches into your fermenter then rinse pouches with boiling water.
Add 3 litres (2 kettles)of boiling water to the fermenter then top up with tap water to 23 litres adding boiling/cold water as necessary to keep the temperature below the recommended 24C.


With sanitised Paddle stir like bejaysus for 5 mins to get lots of O2 into your wort.
Open sachet of yeast and pour into fermenter.
Put lid and airlock on and leave in a warm place for 2 weeks.

I found the pouches were awkward to work with - Cans are better/easier/safer when filled with boiling water. Other than this - very easy to do.

As was mentioned with other Craft Range kits, there was no date on this kit, but I believe this has since been remedied - the kit was new to market so was going to be fresh.

Confession: I made a balls of this kit and bought another one. Above is really the second time around. While making this kit I was not paying as much attention as I should have and filled the fermenter from hot tap, not the cold! To get the temps back in line I put the fermenter out on a cold night for a few hours to bring it down. It was getting late, so at 25C I pitched the yeast.

I don't have the gravity readings any more, but the resulting beer - Bottle conditioned ended up at 4.7%
Taste wise - there was all the right flavours - Banana and clove - probably helped by the high pitching temp!
Despite the boo boo, the resulting beer was tasty and drinkable although the head was bubbly rather than foamy and over carbonated.

Any issues are down to the brewer, not the kit.

Second time around, no mistake with water - but fermented at room temperature  this resulted in a beer with only a bare hint of banana and clove but with better head and tighter foam.

Conclusion: Other than RTFM - A good kit with a good yeast that produces the right flavours once the temperature is kept in the low 20s.

[Drzava]

I'm a man who likes his weissbier - when I get to Heaven (and I was an altar boy so I get a free pass!) St Peter is bound to have a nice Bavarian hefeweiss chilled and waiting at the gates for me. So you could say I was looking forward to my first wheat kit! Bottled it up last night and I'm happy to report it looks like a good 'un! OG 1.047. FG 1.014 - a little shy of the stated 1.011 but we'll put that down to my lack of temperature control (seriously considering getting a fish tank heater). Batch primed with 205g caster sugar (a kind of midway between the kit's guide of 140g, and online calculators Weiss guides of 250g+) so about matching the OP's 4.7% in the bottle. The kit fermented out super quick - it dropped to 1.016 after only 3 days, and settled at 1.014 after 5 days, despite a bit of prodding and poking (and the occasional hot water bottle). First couple of days were at 22 - 24 Celsius and the banana smell was divine - like an accident in a Fyffe's factory! Even at day 3, the sample tasted like....well.......weissbier. My palate doesn't have the refinement to detect clove, but the beer sure tastes like Weiss to me! Got a 'full house' when bottling - 46 500ml bottles (one with about 400ml). I'll be trying a taster at the weekend but, going on the taste from the bucket, I reckon I'll be diving straight into this once it's carbed! I also harvested the yeast - just poured it into a sterile bottle and will use it for my upcoming witbier.

Potential problem - pulled out my 'gear' earlier in the day to get ready for bottling (and a new batch) and found mould in one of my buckets, which was stacked inside my bottling bucket - hopefully I don't end up with a load of furry beer!

[Drzava]

Quick follow up: this is great stuff! I've drank a LOT of Franziskaner over the years and this kit is a near dead ringer for it! Slightly more lingering aftertaste, a deeper colour, and the head doesn't last as well - but aside from this, very close to Franziskaner. I've half the bottles gone already!