Geordie Lager recommendations.

quetzal63

I have always brewed Geordie Lager kits,and have always enjoyed them,however,I fancy experimenting a bit with them now. Any suggestions as to how to "pep" this kit up(treacle,honey,brew short) would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks for any replies....Chris

HBO_Staff

Hi Chris, we haven't made a Geordie kit for a long time so can't personally offer any suggestions, hopefully someone will have some ideas to share with you though. Tweaking a beer kit with a hop teabag is very popular if you like the hoppy styles. Alternatively additions such as treacle and various additions can be made to your personal preference, and added to the brew whilst it ferments to infuse flavour

quetzal63

Many thanks for the reply! Just a quick query? If I add say a tin of treacle to the brew,is that instead of the sugar,or as well as? I have tried a Geordie lager kit before,and added honey to it,but tasted absolutely no difference...maybe I added the honey at the wrong time?

HBO_Staff

It can take quite a bit of honey to make a big difference in the flavour, to help it flavour and ferment though it is best to add it to some hot water so it dissolves and ferments the sugars out more easily. When adding things such as treacle we suggest to add it at the same time as you add the malt extract and let the hot water dissolve it, and just check with a hydrometer that it has completely stopped fermenting as some additions may take longer to ferment the sugars out.

Anything that contains sugar such as treacle will increase the alcohol strength as the sugars will ferment, it is hard to know how much it will increase the strength, but if adding treacle you could reduce the amount of other sugars added to keep the strength down - checking the reading with a hydrometer is the only way to know for sure.

As a general rule if just adding small amounts for flavour then it wont make too much difference