diff --git a/ansible/playbooks/roles/kafka/tasks/common/download_and_unpack_binary.yml b/ansible/playbooks/roles/kafka/tasks/common/download_and_unpack_binary.yml
index a21fbb925a..72af8cef1d 100644
--- a/ansible/playbooks/roles/kafka/tasks/common/download_and_unpack_binary.yml
+++ b/ansible/playbooks/roles/kafka/tasks/common/download_and_unpack_binary.yml
@@ -17,5 +17,5 @@
   file:
     path: "{{ kafka_install_dir }}"
     state: directory
-    owner: kafka
-    group: kafka
+    owner: "{{ specification.user }}"
+    group: "{{ specification.group }}"
diff --git a/cli/src/ansible/AnsibleVarsGenerator.py b/cli/src/ansible/AnsibleVarsGenerator.py
index 71c532dead..0ff88f8782 100644
--- a/cli/src/ansible/AnsibleVarsGenerator.py
+++ b/cli/src/ansible/AnsibleVarsGenerator.py
@@ -72,7 +72,7 @@ def generate(self):
             # is changed between versions (e.g. wal_keep_segments -> wal_keep_size) and sometimes previous parameters
             # are not compatible with the new ones, defaults are used for template processing
             roles_with_defaults = [
-                'grafana', 'haproxy', 'image_registry', 'jmx_exporter', 'kafka_exporter',
+                'grafana', 'haproxy', 'image_registry', 'jmx_exporter', 'kafka', 'kafka_exporter',
                 'kibana', 'logging', 'node_exporter', 'postgres_exporter',
                 'postgresql', 'prometheus', 'rabbitmq', 'repository'
                 ]
diff --git a/docs/home/howto/UPGRADE.md b/docs/home/howto/UPGRADE.md
index 0086bbb0b1..04aaaa20da 100644
--- a/docs/home/howto/UPGRADE.md
+++ b/docs/home/howto/UPGRADE.md
@@ -249,6 +249,7 @@ Kafka will be automatically updated to the latest version supported by Epiphany.
 version [here](../COMPONENTS.md#epiphany-cluster-components). Kafka brokers are updated one by one - but the update
 procedure does not guarantee "zero downtime" because it depends on the number of available brokers, topics, and
 partitioning configuration.
+Note that old Kafka binaries are removed during upgrade.
 
 ### ZooKeeper upgrade