Homebrand recipe

[Wheatman]

Hello brewers,
recently thought I might tryout the homebrand draught beer kit that I have been avoiding whenever I happen to purchase a kit or two at woolworths. Decided to keep things simple and in keeping with the homebrand theme cheap. If you have nothing better to do try this recipe out as it seems to have produced a very drinkable beer.

Homebrand Draught kit.
A pilsner yeast was used as I had one handy
Coopers brew enhancer 1
150g of homebrand rolled oats
1tble spoon of cinamon.
Saaz hops

Steep the rolled oats for about 20mins and strain this into the fermenter with the beer kit. I used Saaz but use what ever hops you like and how much you would use when making a lager say. Boil the hops in 3L of water with the BE 1 for about 20mins and then strain this into the fermenter and start mixing all the ingredients as per normal. Last of all throw in your yeast when the temp is right to do so.

On first tasting, 2 weeks after bottling, I was a bit uncertain about the flavour of the beer as I wouldn't have said it was great but it was not a bad tasting beer either. I decided to try lagering the beer in my fridge for 1 week and this has done wonders. The flavour and character of the beer has turned out to be something very suprising and well worth a try if you have ever thought about using these cheap kit.

Keep your fermenters full

Wheatman

[Chris]

Homebrand kits are still malt and hops. They will always produce decent beer if you put in the right extras. The same can be said for any k&k beer. It doesn't matter what the brand.

[Hrundi V Bakshi]

Chris, I thing that there are extracts and there are extracts. Not all are the same. Many cheaper kits are getting their extract from people like Coopers and Carlton and Lion Nathan... but which? Whoever is cheapest. Some kits are boiled and hopped before canning (kettled). Some are straight up extract, perhaps pasteurised then bittered with isomerised hop extract (isohop). Which is cheapest to make? Unkettled malt with isohop. My guess is that what is being in the black and white labeled kits.

It does most definately matter what the brand.

[thehipone]

Boil up a cheap kit versus something more expensive. Both have break material come out, the cheap one has stuff that looks like dog turds floating in it during the boil. The more expensive one has usually received a little love during manufacture and wont have quite as much break. .

[Lebowski]

Someone on irc told me they had visited the coopers place and saw some homebrand kits being labeled there, the brewer informed him that they just label the stuff for the supermarkets.

Anyone happen to know which homebrand kits are coopers?