BeerBorg

> but you cannot produce good beer straight out of a can

That's not true in any sense. The Woodforde brewery kits made by Muntons were some great beers. The seasonal dubbel was a damn good beer. You can get good beer out of a can. Some of the Muntons Gold kits are quite excellent straight up too. One of my friends just served a bunch of them to some dudes who run a brewery and they were shocked by how good they were.

I did not brew either of my Spring Seasonal straight up, because I went straight for the hop burst and split into 4.8 gallon saison batch modes due to feedback before I brewed. But both my beers are good, the IPA version is IPAish (I did use 1 full oz of Nelson Sauvon in it) and the Dandelion Saison version finished at 1.003 and is plenty dry.

As far as the $25... a 1 hour brew day gives me 2-3 more hours to work or play. 2-3 more hours to work = anywhere from $100 - $200 if I work, or 2 hours to run/bike/swim/ski if I chose not to work. So $25 vs $50 for 5 gallons is totally meaningless in my world view, because time is also money, and the time is worth way more to me.

I love to brew from scratch when I have time and feel like it, but I'm perfectly happy using a can in to fill my pipeline.

mashani wrote:I love to brew from scratch when I have time and feel like it, but I'm perfectly happy using a can in to fill my pipeline.

Well said! Time is also spent on the Honeydo. I too like brewing my own recipes from scratch but when it comes down to not being able to brew for a month or take shortcut with a can, I will choose to brew as I can always sneak in an hour here and there. That is also why I started making wine since that goes pretty quick as well and keeps something different in the pipeline. I dont think many of us are in this hobby to save money when you count the labor hours brewing and bottling. It is just a heck of a lot more satisfying than going to the store and popping a cap from someone else's beer.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that losman26 was targeting this particular canned extract (White IPA) and not all canned extracts in general.


Rick

rickbray66 wrote:I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that losman26 was targeting this particular canned extract (White IPA) and not all canned extracts in general.


Rick

Rick, I think you're right there but I do agree with everything The Beer Belcher said too.

Wings_Fan_In_KC wrote:

rickbray66 wrote:I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that losman26 was targeting this particular canned extract (White IPA) and not all canned extracts in general.


Rick

Rick, I think you're right there but I do agree with everything The Beer Belcher said too.

Absolutely.

I'll be kegging my second go-round with the White IPA come Sunday. Using the Belgian Saison yeast appears to have worked pretty well. FG came in at 1.009, compared to 1.016 the first go-round. By only tasting the sample, I'm liking what I'm getting thus far.


Rick

A White IPA sounds like a bad idea to begin with IMHO.
White ales are generally sweet as hell and finish wet.

I made the MrBeer White IPA and was also disappointed with the result. It was a high cost "lawn mower" type beer but not an IPA.

While walking through the micro brew section of a local package store I saw a White IPA from a local brewery a town away from me (Crossroads Brewery in Stratford CT) so I bought a couple of bottles. After chilling them down for a couple of days I tried on and it was amazing. Really hit the target of what I thought a White IPA should taste like. It was 180 degrees different than the seasonal that MrBeer put out. Last one of their seasonal brews that I will try.

Sparrow wrote:I did the Diablo Blanco, which has an lme and falconers flight addition, and still have a few hanging around.
I wouldn't say it is bad, I just can't seem to classify it, but I can say it didn't turn out to be one of my favorite MrB batches, hence the reason I still have some.

I'm planning on making that in a few weeks.

Root Skier wrote:

Sparrow wrote:I did the Diablo Blanco, which has an lme and falconers flight addition, and still have a few hanging around.
I wouldn't say it is bad, I just can't seem to classify it, but I can say it didn't turn out to be one of my favorite MrB batches, hence the reason I still have some.

I'm planning on making that in a few weeks.

If you can get your hands on some Bella Saison, use it instead of the T-58. You will be rewarded as it will ferment out much drier, which will bring out the bitterness and letting the late hops shine more.

I finally had a couple of the El Diablo recipe using the spring seasonal. Still not sure what this was meant to be as it is slightly sweet and bitter at times. I was hoping that it would have had a little more flavor with the hop addition but it just seemed to come out bitter.