Fermenter's Favorite Cooler/Mash Tun Testing

[Nosybear]

to your point Mase, i think brewing is more like cooking rather than baking (i don't much like the rigidity of baking)

i don't like to measure ingredients when i cook, preferring to just eyeball it and adjust to taste. as long as you have even a general idea of your ingredients, it'll usually turn out just fine. maybe not the greatest, but edible / drinkable at least

It is a LOT like baking: Good baking is also the process of managing a fermentation. What happens in the oven is secondary to what you do when you're formulating the dough and letting it rise, but still very important. I both bake and brew. In both cases, there are areas where you need to be very precise and there are those where you can get away with a little less precision. Both hobbies are rabbit holes: You can go as deeply as you like into either. But then, historically, it wasn't that long ago that no one used thermometers and hydrometers to brew, they just brewed. You can make good beer or good bread by eyeballing it, you just can never reproduce what you did, at least not reliably. Key is to know the control points and the values the beer or bread should have there and control process to hit those values.

 

[Mark D Pirate]

Do you think kits are much better today as the demand is higher and the kits are fresher and with better ingredients then the kits even a few years ago?

I guess I will find out if our first all grain tastes noteably better than the 3 kits that we have brewed, but I have to say that the beer we have made is delicious and far better then anything I have purchased in the same style as a commercial beer.

Hmmm... in looking at beer kit reviews I often see where the all grain kit reviews typically show less "stars" as opposed to the extract kits of the same particular recipe that typically have higher reviews/stars. Is that because the kits are predominately made/reviewed by noobs, and all grain brewers are more experienced and a better judge of the taste/body, etc., etc.?

The expectations with a kit would generally be lower ,my local club is doing a kit based beer swap and in this case the expectations are pretty high since there's several state and national champs brewing .

The particular brewer I'm talking about uses the cheapest no name brand lager kits with a kg of table sugar and only the 5 g of ale yeast that comes with it and ferments at ambient
Also uses bleach to sanitise everything ....strokes for folks I guess

 

[GFHomebrew]

The expectations with a kit would generally be lower ,my local club is doing a kit based beer swap and in this case the expectations are pretty high since there's several state and national champs brewing .

The particular brewer I'm talking about uses the cheapest no name brand lager kits with a kg of table sugar and only the 5 g of ale yeast that comes with it and ferments at ambient
Also uses bleach to sanitise everything ....strokes for folks I guess

What and he is brewing beers that are smashing state brewing comps?

 

[Mark D Pirate]

no mate , they are barely drinkable unless it's very hot and i'm very thirsty

 

[Mase]

Granted, it's hard not to be biased towards a beer that you make compared to a comparable commercial brand. Nevertheless, my wife and I did a side by side taste test comparing our extract kit Caribou Slobber (first home brew ever), to her favorite commercial version of brown ale (Brooklyn' Brown Ale). We both felt that or Caribou Slobber tasted quite a bit better then the Brooklyn Brown Ale. As Caribou Slobber is a clone of "Moose Drool", it would have been fairer to perform a comparison with it, but it's not locally available. Again, it's hard to not be biased, but I stand behind our comparison.

I have all the confidence in the world that all grain, even in kit form, should be better when compared to an extract kit (or at least I hope so, as we haven't done that yet), but I guess what I am saying is that even the extracts kits are pretty darn good as compared to their commercial counterparts.

Which brings me to a question: Do any of you experienced home brewers have a preference over a commercial all grain kit vs purchasing all your own ingredients?

 

[Mark D Pirate]

Just for clarity when I say kit beers I'm talking about pre hopped extract cans .

I get good prices on recipes from my LHBS that are all freshly milled to order works out about 10% by ticking 1 box instead of choosing the exact same malts by the kg and I even sub them out on request
Pre packaged all grain kits wouldn't appeal to me as malt has a short shelf life once milled

 

[Mark D Pirate]

Might make more sense in a market like north america but not here

 

[Nosybear]

What and he is brewing beers that are smashing state brewing comps?

Okay, my first medal (the one you see at the left) was for a partial-mashed Blonde Ale. Kits are getting better if only because extracts are better - we here consume so much of them that the homebrew shop's supply is fresh. A kit here contains - usually - the grains, hops and yeast. You can get them fresher but it mostly doesn't matter for those ingredients: The grains are either vacuum packed or in inert gas, as are the hops. The yeast is dry so it lasts just about forever.... If you're getting fresh extract, it's likely your ingredients are just as fresh as those in the grain hoppers, the hop refrigerators and the yeast fridge. Pre-hopped extract cans.... Isn't that kind of like buying instant coffee? I wouldn't go that route, expensive and no control over the process. I generally don't buy them simply because what I brew generally doesn't come in a kit. Last one I did the homebrew shop asked me to brew it as a test.

 

[Mark D Pirate]

Had to be my turn to lose something in translation !
I live only a few mins drive from the Coopers / Mr Beer factory and if using correctly stored and fresh , higher quality hopped extract you can indeed make decent beer .
Many grocery stores here sell the hopped cans with little concern for dates and heat exposure , these are the kits i'm referring too but i shall call them pre hopped extract to avoid confusion in future

 

[GFHomebrew]

Well Nosey can't argue with that mate. I have no qualms with extracted liquid malt in a can especially if you know it was canned within the last year. But we know with all grain brewing that once milled and the grain mashed in your tun that extracted malt if fresher than anything in a can.

I think if I had children and didn't have the time to tend to a kettle for 4-5 hours I'd switch to extract to cut down on brew time alone/ or no chill.

 

[Mase]

Well Nosey can't argue with that mate. I have no qualms with extracted liquid malt in a can especially if you know it was canned within the last year. But we know with all grain brewing that once milled and the grain mashed in your tun that extracted malt if fresher than anything in a can.

I think if I had children and didn't have the time to tend to a kettle for 4-5 hours I'd switch to extract to cut down on brew time alone/ or no chill.

I think that's the beauty of home brew. I always wanted to do home brewing, but with kids and a full time job, weekends were reserved for catching up on work around the house. Now that the kids are grown up, I have been able to rekindle my desire for making home brew.

First, I started watching videos and reading in earnest, and eventually stumbled upon CraigTube. For me, I was learning a lot about the basics from Craig. Then when he articulated why he brews beer, for simple economic purposes, I realized that Craig and I may not have as much in common for what we want out of our home brew. He likes beer, and really cant afford to purchase beer, so brewing for him satisfies his budget and his love for beer. (He could actually save even more money as all grain kits are cheaper than extract kits, but that's another story. Then you stumble across home brewers that can easily afford beer, but enjoy the art and attention to detail to make something truly respectable and the desire to make great craft beer. And then there is everywhere in between for other home brewers.

In the end, we all make beer, but based on our needs, financially, children, time, etc., we can all get the same satisfaction from homebrewing, its just our purpose for brewing may be diffferent.

 

[Nosybear]

I think that's the beauty of home brew. I always wanted to do home brewing, but with kids and a full time job, weekends were reserved for catching up on work around the house. Now that the kids are grown up, I have been able to rekindle my desire for making home brew.

First, I started watching videos and reading in earnest, and eventually stumbled upon CraigTube. For me, I was learning a lot about the basics from Craig. Then when he articulated why he brews beer, for simple economic purposes, I realized that Craig and I may not have as much in common for what we want out of our home brew. He likes beer, and really cant afford to purchase beer, so brewing for him satisfies his budget and his love for beer. (He could actually save even more money as all grain kits are cheaper than extract kits, but that's another story. Then you stumble across home brewers that can easily afford beer, but enjoy the art and attention to detail to make something truly respectable and the desire to make great craft beer. And then there is everywhere in between for other home brewers.

In the end, we all make beer, but based on our needs, financially, children, time, etc., we can all get the same satisfaction from homebrewing, its just our purpose for brewing may be diffferent.

Amen to that! One of the things I like about this site as opposed to some other discussion boards is there is no "right" way (and no trolls stating that anyone who doesn't do it that way is producing moose p*** as opposed to moose drool).

 

[Mase]

Somewhat anti-climatic, when we brewed our first all grain, the mash tun held to within 1 degree over the course of a 1 hour mash. The ambient temp was mid 60's and we wrapped the mashtun with blankets and I think the real key to holding the temp was placing foil on top of the mash (sanitized first ). So with all of my testing with water and even cracked corn, grain/water thermal mass with foil cap held well and as such, I believe the Fermenter's Favorite Mash/Lauter Tun works great!

 

[CRUNK]

Mash cap is the start of lodo