Who else wants to start brewing their own beer at home without having to spend hours learning the entire brewing process or buying complex home brewing equipment?
Brewing scientists and professional brewmasters have put together various kits which anyone can take to start brewing their own beer at home. Each one has their own advantages and disadvantages and I’m about to cover and review each one of them.
First off, the advantage all these kits have over traditional home brewing (extract brewing or all-grain brewing) is that you can get great beer, fast, simple and easy… There is no kitchen required, no boiling of ingredients and the beer is usually done in about 7-10 days!
You can brew dozens of different styles of beer at a fraction of the cost of commercially available beer…
The first kit you can look at is the beer machine. This is an all-in-one kit that ferments, conditions and dispenses beer. It brews up to 28 12oz bottles of beer which has been continuously improved over the last 20 years.
The design has allowed brewing to become a 1-2-3 step process.
1. Pour water into the airtight beer machine cask
2. Add beer mix
3. Seal and wait 7-10 days to serve and drink.
Similarly Mr. Beer has prepared a kit with the only difference being that one must bottle the beer after it has been fermented. The kit comes with 8 reusable plastic 1-liter bottles and screw caps. They are specifically designed to withstand pressure from carbonated beverages.
The kit makes approximately 2 gallons of beer and the ingredients are also less expensive than buying commercially available beer. There are different versions of the kit which varies with the ingredients included. Some of their premium packages include various refill ingredient kits and extra bonuses.
Last, we have the Coopers microbrewery kit. This kit is manufactured by Coopers Brewery which started in Adelaide, South Australia.
The process is similar to the Mr. Beer kit only the ingredients are different. The brewers at Coopers brewery came up with various beer kit packages to brew beer the way it was intended at the actual brewery. Some of these beer kits include Lager, Draught, Real Ale, Dark Ale, Stout, English Bitter, Australian Pale Ale, Canadian Blonde, Mexican Cerveza, European Lager, India Pale Ale, Pilsener, Wheat Beer, Irish Stout, Australian Bitter, Traditional Draught, Heritage Lager, Sparkling Ale, and Lawnmower Lager.
Some people buy the equipment from either of these manufacturers and experiment with the beer kit ingredients to brew different styles of beer. If you buy the beer machine, you’ll need the one that can bottle to use the kits from these other manufacturers.
The limitations of these kits is that you are stuck brewing only the pre-made kits that are sold by these manufacturers. It is a good starting point or for those who just want to experiment with the hobby without investing too much money in equipment.
Extract brewing and All-Grain brewing gives home brewers the ability to brew their own recipes and clone other popular beers.
The taste is somewhat improved by the use of malts instead of the booster packs from these kits. With that being said, you can and should substitute the booster packs in these kits with dry malt extract which can be purchased at a local home brew supply store or online to increase the quality of beer.
Other than that, these kits are great birthday gifts, father day’s gift or just for anyone looking to experiment with home brewing.
