Bill Dutton wrote:
[color=blue]
> I don't trust kits. Some make good beer and some do not. You never know
> if the extract in the kit is fresh or not and the yeast is usually of poor
> quality.
>
> I have switched from doing kits to making extract w/specialty grains based
> on recipes from Clone Brews or cats meow 3 (go to hbd.org for info on
> recipes). I also use only good quality yeast from White Labs, Wyeast or
> some Safale or Nottingham dry yeast packets. I have also had a great deal
> of success harvesting and storing yeast for future use. This cuts down on
> the expense ($5-6 for liquid yeast) and my fermentation in subsequent
> generations of yeast(re-use) has been excellent.[/color]

Watch out for some of those Cat's Meow recipes...a good number of them
were posted without the recipe ever being tested. I even ran across a
Red ale recipe there that was nothing but crystal malt! In order to use
them, you have to know enough to recognize what might be wrong!

------------->Denny
--
Life begins at 60 - 1.060, that is.