Shortcuts to Improving your kit beers

You've made your first kit beer, and whilst the pleasure associated with the first sip of your own beer can never be replicated, your third and forth glasses lead you to wonder how you can improve things. In this article I have set out five simple ways that you can improve your kit beer, without too much additional effort.

1. Jump-start your yeast!

It has been said many times that brewers make wort and yeast makes beer. So my first tip has to do with making the yeast as happy and ready to go as possible.

Think of yourself on a Monday morning after a heavy weekend. Your palate is dry, your head foggy; all you want is a cup of coffee, a shower, and to ease into the day. Now picture the same scene, but instead of waking up at home, you wake up at your desk. The phones are ringing, your boss is hovering - not a pretty picture is it?

A dried yeast cell is fairly similar to a hungover sleepy human. When you throw it straight into your fermenter full of wort, it feels a bit put out and does not really work that efficiently. It much prefers to ease into fermentation.

Tip 1: Rehydrate dried yeast in 35°C water for 15 minutes before you pitch it.

A sugar solution puts pressure on yeast cell walls. When a yeast cell has been dried, its cell walls are weak, and so placing it in a sugar solution can damage it. It is better first to rehydrate the yeast in as neutral a solution as possible. Plain tap water works fine.

My approach is to boil a cup of water and then let it cool down to 35°C (between 30 and 38 is okay). This ensures that the water is relatively sterile. I then pour in my sachet of dried yeast and cover the cup. After 15 minutes or so, the yeast will have started to release CO2 showing that it is healthy and ready for work. Throw the yeast into your fermenter when your wort is at fermentation temperature.

2. Oxygenate

My second tip also has to do with yeast health. Yeast goes through two phases in your fermenter.

During the first phase, it buds to form more yeast. During the second it ferments to form alcohol. The first phase requires oxygen. Yeast can make do without oxygen, but this results in a poor fermentation and off flavours. It also results in a higher final gravity than desired.

Tip 2: Oxygenate your wort at the start of fermentation.

There are many ways to oxygenate your wort. The simplest that I have found is to use a whisk. Once I have made my wort and am happy that it is at the right temperature, I add yeast and then beat the living daylights out of the wort with my whisk - normally for 15 to 20 minutes. Not only does this start your fermentation more quickly, it also gives you a great shoulder workout.

It is important to note that from about 18 hours after the start of fermentation you don't want any oxygen to get to your beer, or as little as possible.

3. Malt tastes better than sugar!

Malt is a form of sugar - but it is one that tastes great after fermentation. Household sugar does not taste so great once it has fermented. A simple experiment is to ferment a cup of sugar solution and taste that - the cidery taste will remind you of some of the poorer kit beers that you may have consumed.

When malt ferments, it leaves behind all of the beery flavours that we enjoy so much. A great beer has yet to be described as sugary, whereas everyone looks forward to a malty beer.

Tip 3: Replace the sugar called for in your recipe with malt extract.

It is possible to calculate the exact amount of malt extract to use, but I simply substitute either dry malt extract or malt extract syrup for the sugar called for in the recipe on a gram for gram basis. Malt extract is more expensive than sugar - but the improvement in taste more than compensates.

4. Keep the bugs out!

Wort makes a good meal for a range of beings other than yeast. Yeast is quite an aggressive creature at defending its turf, in that it drops the pH and releases alcohol, both of which discourage other bugs. However, some bugs release off flavours very quickly and can spoil your beer despite there only being a few of them.

Tip 4: Sterilise everything that comes into contact with your beer.

Household bleach makes a great steriliser. It is relatively cheap and you don't need a lot. Just remember to rinse things before they come into contact with your beer as bleach flavoured beer is not great. Also avoid the scented bleaches for similar reasons.

5. Your friends don't respect a headless beer!

The one perennial problem with kit beers is that they are either headless or good substitutes for fire extinguishers. This depends upon whether they were correctly primed when bottled or whether the brewer got tired of headless beer and decided to heap his/her priming spoon a little.

I don't know why malt extract based beers don't raise good heads, but I have never managed to correct this without cheating.

Tip 5: Adding heading liquid to your beer before bottling ensures a good head

Heading liquid is a wonderful substance sold by many home brew shops. It is added in small quantities before bottling and makes all the difference. I cannot taste it in my beer, and so no one needs to know about it.

It is important to follow the directions carefully though, as too much can turn your beer into a geyser.

In summary

This article contains some very simple tips that can greatly improve your kit beer. Tips 1 to 4 apply to all brewers whether they be kit brewers or professionals. Tip 5 is a simple way to impress your friends. The real joy of kit beer is that it is so quick and simple. I hope that these tips don't add to the time you spend but greatly to the finished product.

Happy Brewing,

Ant Hayes Gauteng; South Africa