Why Fresh Wort Kits Are Perfect for Beginner Homebrewers

If you've ever been curious about homebrewing but felt overwhelmed by the complexity of the process, fresh wort kits might just be the perfect solution for you. These kits offer a fantastic entry point into the world of homebrewing, combining convenience with quality to help you brew your own beer with ease. Here's everything you need to know about fresh wort kits and why they are one of the best ways to get started with the worlds greatest hobby - homebrewing.

Simplicity and Convenience

One of the biggest barriers to entry for new homebrewers is the perceived complexity of the brewing process. Fresh wort kits simplify this by providing you with pre-made wort, which is the liquid extracted from the mashing process during the brewing of beer. This means you can skip the time-consuming and sometimes complicated steps of mashing and boiling, and jump straight to fermentation. All you need to do is add yeast and in some cases a few litres of water, then let the magic happen!

Superior to Canned/Tinned Extract or Malt Extract

Fresh wort kits have a significant advantage over tinned liquid or dry powdered malt extracts. Fresh wort is essentially ready-to-ferment wort that has been professionally brewed and packaged on commercial brewing equipment. This means it retains more of the original flavors and aromas compared to malt extracts, which are concentrated and often lose some of their freshness during the production process. 

Most people are familiar with the tins of malt extract for making beer

Additionally, fresh wort kits do not require the additional boiling step that malt extracts do (as a fresh wort kit has already been boiled), making the brewing process even simpler and more straightforward. The result is a fresher, more vibrant beer that closely resembles what you would get from a professional craft brewery.

Consistent Quality

When you're just starting out, achieving consistent results can be challenging. Fresh wort kits are produced by professional brewers using high-quality ingredients and precise brewing techniques. This ensures that your beer will have a consistent and high-quality base, giving you a better chance of success with your first few batches. 

This is definitely one of the biggest challenges brewers new to the hobby face - after brewing an initial batch that is nowhere near as good as they had hoped or expected, many give the hobby away without pursuing it any further. Fresh wort kits are a great way to build confidence and learn the ropes without the frustration of failed attempts.

Time-Saving

Homebrewing can be a time-intensive hobby, especially when you're learning the process from scratch. The mashing and boiling steps of creating wort typically take at least one hour each, so a complete brew day will usually take at least 4 hours in total (at the homebrew scale).

Fresh wort kits save you literal hours of preparation and cleanup, allowing you to focus on some of the more fun parts of brewing and experimenting with different flavors and styles. This makes it easier to fit homebrewing into a busy schedule and still enjoy the satisfaction of creating your own beer, with far less time needing to be invested, and with far superior results to the aforementioned malt extract based beers.

Educational Value

Using fresh wort kits can be a great educational experience. They provide a solid foundation for understanding the brewing process - particularly on the "cold side", which encompasses everything after the wort has been created. From sanitation, yeast management all the way through to dry hopping and packaging, there's still plenty of scope for creativity, and as you become more comfortable you can start experimenting with different yeasts, hops, and additives to put your own spin on your favourite fresh wort kit. This hands-on learning approach can be incredibly rewarding and can help you develop the skills and knowledge needed to eventually brew from scratch.

Once you've got your cold side processes locked in after making several great tasting beers for fresh wort kits, you can look at expanding your process (and equipment) to include the wort making process - ie. mashing and boiling.

Cost-Effective

Starting a new hobby can sometimes be expensive, but fresh wort kits offer a cost-effective way to get into homebrewing. Since the kits include most of the ingredients you need, you won't have to invest in a lot of specialized equipment right away. In particular, since you're skipping the mashing and boiling process of creating wort, there's no need for the financial outlay for the equipment required to do so. This would typically be a boil kettle, mash tun, or a combined all-in-one style unit like the BrewZilla. This allows you to try out homebrewing without a significant upfront cost, making it more accessible for beginners.

What You Need to Get Started

Getting started with brewing a fresh wort kit is straightforward and requires only a few essential items:

Fresh Wort Kit

This includes the pre-made wort, ready for fermentation. They typically come in a bladder or container of around 15-20L.

Fermentation Vessel

Keg King's Apollo Fermenter is a great entry level plastic fermenter

A food-grade plastic bucket with a spigot will work, but we'd recommend something like the Apollo or FermZilla which gives you some additional benefits like the ability to pressure ferment. Keep in mind these fermenters don't have a tap/spigot, so you'll need some other bits of equipment in order to package (like a bottle filler beer gun or counter-pressure bottle filler and CO2 bottle.)

Yeast

The type of yeast will depend on the style of beer you're brewing. The fresh wort kit will usually recommend a specific yeast strain. Go for dry yeast as opposed to liquid, and just sprinkle it on top of the wort after adding it to the fermenter - for most ale strains, a single packet will be sufficient. Lagers may require 2 packets, but look at the yeast manufacturers recommended pitching rate if you're unsure.

Sanitizer

Keeping everything clean and sanitized is crucial to avoid contamination. No-rinse sanitizers like StarSan (or similar derivatives) are definitely the way to go. Be sure to mix them at the recommended concentration, and also ensure your equipment is clean prior to sanitizing. Check out our Beginner FAQ: Cleaning & Sanitising - What's the Difference? article for more information.

Hydrometer

Optional, but useful for measuring the specific gravity of your wort to monitor fermentation progress and to determine the alcohol content of your finished beer. Floating hydrometers are cheap and relatively accurate/reliable so are a worthwhile investment.

Bottles and Caps (or Kegs)

For storing your finished beer. You can also use a kegging system if you prefer, though you're not likely to have this if you're just starting out. 

PET plastic bottles can be a good (and cheaper) starting point, or even better, by a case of your favourite beer and keep/reuse the bottles (but be sure to clean them first!)

Swing top bottles are another option, but they don't provide a good/reliable seal in our experience, so we wouldn't recommend them, but we know many other people do use them.

Bottle Capper 

If you're using bottles, you'll need a capper to seal them - these are relatively inexpensive, but are very simple to use.

Of course if you're using PET bottles with a screw on lid or swing top bottles then you won't need to worry about one of these.

Community and Support

The homebrewing community is known for being welcoming and supportive. By starting with fresh wort kits, you'll find it easier to connect with other homebrewers who can offer advice, tips, and encouragement. Many local homebrew shops and online forums have resources specifically for beginners using fresh wort kits, so you'll never feel like you're on your own.

Troubleshooting

There's plenty that can go wrong in the many steps of the brewing process, but by using a fresh wort kit you're skipping half of the process, so this eliminates any of the potential problems that could happen during the creation of the wort. This means that if you're fresh wort kit doesn't taste good, there's a shorter list of things to look at (compared to making all grain wort and beers from scratch). This isn't an exhaustive list, but the first things to look at would be;

An infection

If you're fermenter wasn't clean (ie. no visible dirt/debris) and sanitised (using no-rinse sanitizer as previously mentioned) there's a decent chance you'll have other microbes competing with your yeast who may win, and end up infecting your wort/beer and make it taste bad.

Poor temperature management

If you don't have a way to keep your fermenter within the recommended temperature range for the yeast throughout fermentation, the temperature may get too hot which can lead to the yeast imparting off-flavours into your beer. If you don't have temperature control, look at using a variety of yeast (like Kveik) that tolerates high temperatures.

Kveik yeast is a great option if you don't have a way to control the fermentation temperature

Oxidation

This is one of the toughest problems to combat when starting out.  Finished beer, especially hop forward styles like Pale Ale's or IPA's, are very sensitive to oxygen and if even the smallest amount is introduced, it can cause the beer to oxidise and taste stale very quickly. If your beer tasted good at first, then degraded over a week or two, this is the most likely culprit.

Other Off Flavours

There's loads of information available on the off-flavours you can encounter when brewing beer. Simply searching for some flavour descriptors of how your beer tastes get you on the right track to determing what may have gone wrong. Our advice to anyone starting out is to keep trying and looking for ways to improve your process and don't give up! 

Who Makes Fresh Wort Kits?

It appears that Australia is leading the way in terms of manufacturing fresh wort kits - with a number of  breweries expanding their product offerings to include them. Some examples include All Inn Brewing Co, Casey's Brewery and The Brew Shed. We've made quite a few of the All Inn Brewing Co fresh wort kits, with excellent results.

They are definitely available in other parts of the world, and we're expecting they will grow very rapidly in popularity. Check with your local home brew shop or search online to see if there are any available where you live.

Conclusion

Fresh wort kits are an excellent way to dive into the world of homebrewing. They offer simplicity, consistent quality, and a time-saving approach that makes brewing your own beer more accessible than ever.

Although they aren't available everywhere in the world just yet, we suspect that their popularity is going to significantly increase and they will become more readily available in more places. 

Whether you're looking to learn the basics or just want a convenient way to enjoy homemade beer, fresh wort kits are a fantastic option to consider. So why not give it a try and start your homebrewing journey today?