A
beer kit is a
tin of concentrated
wort packaged with dry
yeast. Typically they are 1.7 kg large, so that on can brew 23
litres of beer. They vary enormously in quality - the best will be made with only
hops and
malt from two-row
barley, and with malted wheat for a
weizen or other
wheat beer, and should be clearly marked as such. These are convenient as they can often be purchased in
supermarkets while other
brewing ingredients are rarely stocked.
Homebrewing often seems a lot more difficult than it actually is to the
novice brewer, and the manufacturers of beer kits recognise this. Unfortunately their attempts to manage this can cause
confusion for everyone - many kits labeled as
lager will be packaged with an
ale yeast as
ale is quicker to
ferment and can be made without
racking or
lagering. They will also direct people to use
sugar to increase the
alcohol content. There is nothing particularly wrong with this but a lot of people will use
cane sugar rather than the more neutrally flavoured
dextrose - no doubt they wish to avoid scaring customers away by placing a large, unfamiliar word like dextrose on their packaging.
Many people customise beer kits by adding their own
adjuncts such as
malt extract.