Brooklyn kit - What next?

Casmo

Hi,

Just about ready to bottle my first ever batch of homebrew (finger crossed) using the brooklyn beershop kit. There own refill packs are prohibitively
expensive (€18 plus P&P from UK for 1 gallon mix) so Im looking for an alternative.
Been looking around some of the irish home brew sites but it slightly overwhelming at the moment. Can anyone recommend a basic grain/hops/yeast combination from homebrewwest for example for my next batch? Belgian style ipa's are my weapon of choice at the moment

Appreciate any advise, Thanks

BeerNut

Are you happy enough with the Brooklyn method, of mashing on the stove and making 5L of beer at a time?

Casmo

Im happy enough with the process for now. The volumes are small but thats fine for the moment until im a bit more knowledgeable. I am enjoying seeing the process from beginning to end.. or at least i will be if the end product is remotely decent.

BeerNut

You could have a look at True Batch kits: as far as I can see they work the same way as the Brooklyn ones. Not much cheaper but at least they're shipped locally.

If putting your own 5L recipe together I'd suggest 750g of a base malt -- either of the pils malts HBW has would do. Say 200g of a speciality malt: chocolate malt for a porter, crystal malt for a red ale, and then about 20g of hops split into timed additions the way you did the Brooklyn kit, or adding them earlier if you want more bitterness or later if you want less. For yeast it's hard to go wrong with US-05.

If you're putting your own recipes together like this it's a very good idea to get some brewing software so you can get an idea of what the finished beer will be like even before you order the ingredients. I use BeerTools Pro but there are plenty of others, some free.

Casmo

Excellent. I appreciate the info. So rather than crushing those grains myself, are the Brupaks Crushed Grains a good option?

BeerNut

Beats crushing, I'm sure But I don't do all-grain brews so I can't say.

Of course, you could just go extract: steep the specialty grain first for 20mins at ~60C and then just whack in about 750g of spraymalt and start the boil.

Khannie

BeerNut wrote: »

I don't do all-grain brews

I must say, as the chief around these parts, this surprises me a little.

BeerNut

I'm actually not that into brewing, really.

Sitting at a keyboard and typing stuff into the Internet, though? I'm all over that.

Loadedscream

I've not tried them but this crowd look interesting - http://oakhomebrew.co.uk/shop/index.php?route=product/category&path=62_65

About £7 for a 5 litre kit + postage (parcel motel might help). They seem to make kits to order too which could be good.

I'm onto my last brooklyn kit so I'd be interested to see if there are reasonably priced alternatives too.