Brewing your first beer from a kit, what you need

What brewing a kit beer actually involves

A kit beer is about as simple as brewing gets, and the whole job is that you tip a tin of concentrated wort into a fermenter, add sugar and water, pitch the yeast, and leave it somewhere cool enough to work. Two weeks later you bottle it, and a couple of weeks after that you drink it.

There's no chemistry in it and there's no guessing either, because the tin has been doing the hard part for you. What you do need is a small amount of gear, and one thing that matters more than all the rest of it put together, which I'll get to.

The gear, and what each bit is for

• A fermenter. A food grade drum with a sealing lid and a tap. Ours is a 30 litre complete system, which gives you headroom above a standard batch so it can't foam out of the top.
• An airlock. Sits in the lid and lets carbon dioxide out without letting anything back in.
• A hydrometer and test jar. Tells you when fermentation has actually finished rather than when you think it has. This is the one people skip and then wonder why a bottle went off like a grenade.
• Sanitiser. A no rinse one is easiest. Anything the beer touches after the boil gets sanitised.
• Bottles and caps, or PET bottles. Plastic PET bottles with screw caps are the easy start because you don't need a capper for them.
• Carbonation drops. One or two per bottle, which saves measuring priming sugar.

You can buy that as a Coopers starter kit with most of it in the one box, or piece it together, and there's no real advantage either way beyond what's on the shelf when you come in.

The thing that matters most is temperature

If you take one thing from this, take this one. Fermentation temperature does more to the taste of your beer than the tin you picked, and a warm ferment is the single commonest reason a first batch comes out tasting harsh or oddly fruity.

An ale yeast wants somewhere around 18 to 22 degrees, and it generates a bit of its own heat while it's working, so the beer runs warmer than the room it's sitting in. A shed that hits the mid 30s in February will cook a batch no matter how carefully you did everything else.

The cheap fix is position. Inside the house, on the floor rather than a bench, away from a western wall, and a wet towel over the fermenter on a hot day will pull a few degrees off through evaporation. A heater belt does the opposite job in winter, and we keep those on the shelf.

How long it takes

Give it about 2 weeks in the fermenter and don't rush it off the yeast, because the last few days are when the yeast cleans up after itself and tidies the green flavours out. The hydrometer settles the question. Two identical readings a couple of days apart means it's done, and a calendar doesn't.

After bottling, allow around 2 weeks somewhere warmish for the carbonation to build, then get them somewhere cool. Most kit beers are better again at 4 to 6 weeks in the bottle than at 2 weeks, so the hardest part of brewing is honestly just leaving it alone.

Shop related products

• Coopers Original Lager 1.7kg. A forgiving first tin and an easy drinking result.
• Coopers Original Draught 1.7kg. The other one I'd point a first timer at.
• Thomas Coopers Bootmaker Pale Ale 1.7kg. A step up once the first batch has gone well.
• Coopers Brew Enhancer 1. Better than plain white sugar for the sugar addition.

Did you know none of the brewing hardware is on the website, it all lives in the shop. What we keep:

• The Coopers starter kit
• Fermenter complete systems in 30 litre and 60 litre
• A hydrometer with a test jar, plus a glass thermometer
• Airlocks and grommets
• PET bottles by the carton, caps, crown seals and three different cappers
• Carbonation drops, no rinse sanitiser, bottle brushes and a heater belt

Give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf. The tins and the sugars are online in our Coopers collection and the homebrew collection.

If you'd rather ask questions than read, Brewhilder is our homebrew adviser, or come in and we'll talk you through a first batch at the counter.

Read next

• 5 beer and food pairings to try with your homebrew
• Why a homemade pale ale suits fish and chips
• How to match your beer to what is on the BBQ

I check the airlock far more often than it needs checking, which is apparently just part of my process now.

Cheers,
Candeece

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