[Review] HBC Irish Stout Extract Kit

[coralaigh]

I brewed the HBC dry stout on Monday afternoon and there's been no sign of fermentation yet........Did any of you experience this yourselves??

[delzep]

Where is your fermenter?

Are you sure the lid is on tight?

[shweeney]

is there any foam on the top of the liquid - mine was fermenting fairly vigorously after 2 days.

[coralaigh]

Mmmmmm...the fermenter is in my sitting room, with a fairly consistent temp of 16-20 celcius. The lid is on tight alright, but I'm not 100% sure about the foam head, I'll check it out later this afternoon and report back! Thanks for the advice.

[coralaigh]

Hey Shweeney, yeah there is a reasonable amount of foam on the top alright, but still no fermentation. Sucks.

[armedcor]

The only way to really know theres no fermentation is to check the gravity.

[Dunkel]

You could have a leak around the airlock. Try pressing down on the lid with your hand. The water level in the airlock should rise and stay there. If it doesn't rise, or falls back whilst still pressing, CO2 is escaping from somewhere.

[coralaigh]

It seems to have been an airlock issue as i took a gravity reading and it's fermented alright. Final abv should be about 3.5%.

[shweeney]

my HBC stout has been in the bottle for 6 weeks now and I've had 2 issues with it

1. It's flat - there's a slight hiss when I open the bottle, but no head or noticeable carbonation while drinking.  Not sure if I under-primed, its the second batch in a row with this problem and they were the first 2 where I've batch primed as opposed to just priming the bottles directly; unfortunately I'd bottled this batch before I tried the last batch and noticed it.  I might try opening and re-priming a few of the bottles.

2. There's a pronounced wheat-beer-esque flavour in the aftertaste - it's not unpleasant (I like wheatbeer) but it's not what you'd expect from a stout.  Anyone any thoughts on where this might have come from?  The kit came with US05 yeast which is supposed to be very clean tasting.  Fermentation would have been at about 22C, though it might have been a few degrees warmer when I pitched.

[Bubbles]

my HBC stout has been in the bottle for 6 weeks now and I've had 2 issues with it

1. It's flat - there's a slight hiss when I open the bottle, but no head or noticeable carbonation while drinking.  Not sure if I under-primed, its the second batch in a row with this problem and they were the first 2 where I've batch primed as opposed to just priming the bottles directly

Perhaps the priming sugar solution didn't mix well with the beer when you racked to the bottling bucket. Can happen if the siphon is running slowly. I always do a gentle whirlpool with the racking cane to ensure the sugar is mixed through the batch.

2. There's a pronounced wheat-beer-esque flavour in the aftertaste - it's not unpleasant (I like wheatbeer) but it's not what you'd expect from a stout.  Anyone any thoughts on where this might have come from?  The kit came with US05 yeast which is supposed to be very clean tasting.  Fermentation would have been at about 22C, though it might have been a few degrees warmer when I pitched.

Belgian flavours in a beer that isn't supposed to taste Belgian is almost certainly because you pitched and fermented too warm. 22C is too warm for US-05. You're better off at <20C. And it's good practice to pitch colder than you intend to ferment at. I'd say pitching at ~25C is definitely the culprit. Far too hot.

[shweeney]

Perhaps the priming sugar solution didn't mix well with the beer when you racked to the bottling bucket. Can happen if the siphon is running slowly. I always do a gentle whirlpool with the racking cane to ensure the sugar is mixed through the batch.

It's possible - I might just go back to priming the bottles, I'm only doing 12L batches so I'm not convinced batch priming is saving me any time.

Belgian flavours in a beer that isn't supposed to taste Belgian is almost certainly because you pitched and fermented too warm. 22C is too warm for US-05. You're better off at <20C. And it's good practice to pitch colder than you intend to ferment at. I'd say pitching at ~25C is definitely the culprit. Far too hot.

that was my suspicion after reading some discussions elsewhere.  I don't have any temperature control so 21-22C is what I'm stuck with, but I could probably get it cooler for pitching. cheers.

[Bubbles]

The problem with carbing the bottle individually is that you just don't get the same level of control that you get with batch priming. I've made several excellent beers over the years that were let down by inappropriate (lower) levels of carbonation.

The pitching temp is even more important than the fermentation temperature. Those Belgian flavours you're tasting are esters formed during the lag phase when the yeast is reproducing in preparation for fermentation. Too much heat makes the yeast spit out more of those flavours than if it was fermented cooler. Are you doing full boils and cooling with an immersion chiller?

Is there a cooler room in your house? A cupboard, utility room, under the stairs. Anywhere there's no radiator really..

[Will_D]

Always advisable to pop 500 ml into a Lucozade bottle, that way you can see and feel whats happening!

[shweeney]

The problem with carbing the bottle individually is that you just don't get the same level of control that you get with batch priming. I've made several excellent beers over the years that were let down by inappropriate (lower) levels of carbonation.

The pitching temp is even more important than the fermentation temperature. Those Belgian flavours you're tasting are esters formed during the lag phase when the yeast is reproducing in preparation for fermentation. Too much heat makes the yeast spit out more of those flavours than if it was fermented cooler. Are you doing full boils and cooling with an immersion chiller?

Is there a cooler room in your house? A cupboard, utility room, under the stairs. Anywhere there's no radiator really..

I've generally achieved decent results bottle priming, you might get the odd bottle that's less carbonated, but I've now had 2 batch-primed batches that didn't carbonate at all which is worse.

I cooled recent batches with ice, but couldn't get the last few degrees down so thought "f*** it" and pitched.  Was planning to either get an IC or move to no-chill, but in both cases the equipment is designed for full batches, and I'm happier doing smaller volumes as I only have so much space for bottles (also, if I'd done a full batch of this stout, I'd now have 40+ bottles of flat Witstout  )
The only cooler room is our downstairs loo, which has no heating and is definitely a few degrees cooler, but I don't want to put it in there for obvious reasons.

[johnrm]

Always advisable to pop 500 ml into a Lucozade bottle, that way you can see and feel whats happening!

Feckin broken record!