Mangrove Jacks beer kits and brewery in a box

In this video we show you just how easy it is to start home brewing your own beer using the Mangrove Jacks brewery in a box along with the Mangrove Jacks extract recipe kits.

These kits are a great way to get started in home brewing, they make a great gift for anyone that loves good beer or are perfect if you don’t have time for a full brew day.

For a small investment you can be producing great tasting beer at home from a wide range of styles of beer.

Today we’re going to show you how easy it is to start home brewing. The easiest way to brew at home is to use a kit. Mangrove Jacks have a very wide and broad range of kits available for you to brew at home.

To do this we sell two starter kits, a Malt Miller one and the Mangroves Jacks Brewery in a Box.

In the Mangrove Jacks kit you get a fermenting bucket, bottle brush, capper, instructions, caps, bottling stick, spoon, hydrometer, sanitiser, bubbler, tap, stick on thermometer.

The bits we’re going to use first are the bucket, sanitising powder, tap, Gromit, airlock, and spoon. First thing we’re going to do is to sanitise it all. We’ve already got some sanitiser mixed up, but read the instructions on the tub. Sanitise the tap first, then the airlock, and the spoon in there. A good tip is to have a spray bottle of sanitiser.

Screw the tap into the bucket, add everything to the bucket with the sanitiser, put the lid on then shake it all about, while covering the hole in the top. Read the instructions and and leave everything in there to sanitise. Take the sanitiser out.

Today we’re going to show you how to brew the Mangrove Jacks Pils kit. This is a great kit, you get inside the pouch, the dry hop and the yeast in there. You do need to buy in addition to this a packet of enhancer to extend the kit, this recipe requires 1.2kg, or you can use dextrose.

Inside the pouch you have two sides, a wet side and a dry side. Unfortunately also inside are the instructions, which isn’t great as you really would like to be able to read these before opening the pouch.

NOTE: Since filming the video and writing this transcript the nice guys at Mangrove Jacks have provide us with the instruction for you to download: Mangrove Jacks CS instructions

Cut open the pouch with scissors, inside you can see hops, yeast, instructions, these ones are important.

We’ve opened the pouch, taken out the pieces, and read the instructions. These tell us that you add the pouch to 3ltrs of boiling water. This is the really nice bit as these smell really nice. A tip here is to roll the pouch up to squeeze out as much as possible. You want to get as much of the extract out as you want to get all the sugar and malt out.

You can add a little of the hot water to pouch to rinse them out, but be very careful as these will get hot. Or you can continue to roll and squeeze the pouch.

So slowly add the water and get stirring, you want to get this all mixed up and dissolved into the water. Give it a good stir. Really get into the corners to ensure its all mixed up really well.

We now top the fermenter up to 23 ltrs with cold water.

Attach the stick on thermometer to the bucket so we can check the temperature of the wort we’ve made.

We then want to add the yeast and take a hydrometer reading.

The lid then goes on, along with the grommet and airlock, ensuring its nicely sealed.

Take your hydrometer reading. Use the tube that the hydrometer comes packed in. Slowly open the tap and pour in a sample of the wort. Wait for the bubbles to settle and take your reading. 1058 is the reading we got.

We then leave this to ferment for 7 days or when it reaches 1025. Put this at somewhere where it will get a constant temperature of 18-20c, the temperature at which this yeast likes to ferment at.

Then take a reading, if its at 1025 you can add your dry hop addition to the beer. We recommend storing your hops in the packet in a fridge until you are ready to use them.

After adding your hops leave it to ferment for 2-3days. Then if possible cold crashing the beer would help to ensure that it is a bit clearer.

You then need to think about bottling or how you are going to serve your beer. You do get included with the kit a capper and caps, you could use these with bottles that you’ve saved up from beer you have drunk at home. Or you could use plastic Coopers bottles to bottle the beer, you will need roughly 48 bottles for this volume of beer.

We hope you like this video and that is shows you just how easy it is to produce your own beer at home.

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