Beer Kits

Advantages of Beer Kits

Firstly, you will not get a show quality beer by using beer kits. The only way to achieve this is to brew using the "All Grain" method. However, it is possible to make a very drinkable beer using a kit. Kits have the advantage of being very quick to prepare, compared to "All Grain" brewing. An "All Grain" brew can take most of the day to get to the point where you pitch the yeast. Using a kit reduces this time to around 30-40 minutes.

Although I now mainly brew using the "All Grain" method, I do not have the time to do this for every brew. This means that a few good kit beers are required to keep my Kegs full.

What Kits?

I have tried a lot of different kits and have found varying results. There are two main types of kit:

3KG which contain 2 cans of malt.
1.8kg single can of malt.

You would have thought that the more malt, the better the final beer will be but this is not always the case. A good 3KG kit is Woodfordes Wherry, which produces a very drinkable beer based on the real ale of the same name that is available in pubs. I have also had some very good results with the Coopers brand and these are only 1.8Kg kits.

Tips for Brewing great Beer from Kits:

Yeast
Throw away the yeast in the Kit and use something like Safale S-04. This yeast ferments fast, clears quickly and leaves virtually no after taste. Some of the cheap yeasts supplied with beer kits leave some awful tastes and smells behind in the finished beer.
Sugars
Never use cane suger, even if the kit suggests this. Replace this with Beer Enhancer or Spaymalt or Brewing Sugar. You can even use Golden Syrup if you have trouble finding the other alternatives but this is not much better than cane sugar. Some hombrew shops also sell tins of malt, which you can add instead of sugar but these seem to work out very expensive. Cane Sugar will leave a strong aftertaste in the beer, which will resemble something like meths, so use this in very small quantities as a last resort.
Fermentation temperature
This is probably the most important factor in brewing quality beer, whether "All Grain" or Kit. Invest in some equipment to maintain a constant temperature throughout the fermentation process. See the Equipment page.
Secondary Fermentation
The instructions found on many kits advise you to move your beer to a secondary fermentation vessel after the initial primary fermentation has completed (around 7 days). This is said to have the advantage of moving the beer away from the spent yeast, producing a cleaner tasting beer. However, this does increase the risk of infection and if you are using quality yeasts you are best to leave this step out. I usually ferment in a closed wine fermenter with the airlock removed for the first week then fit an airlock and leave for another 2-3 weeks to clear.

Other Beer Kits I have tried

Muntons - Country Cider - Not really a Cider, more of an Apple beer. For some reason this kit uses a lot of malt to get its sugar. This does not really work for me and i will not do this Kita again.