The Gozdawa raffle kit I won from HomeBrewWest arrived this week and hopefully i'll stick it on this Saturday whenever my fv is free
Quite a straightforward kit. 2 tins of gloop (malt/hop extract), a 7g packet of yeast and an instruction sheet
i've never made an Imperial Stout before but from what I understand they're a bit on the strong side so I wonder how well the yeast will do as opposed to the usual 11g packs
The instructions also call for a sugar/glucose "refermentation" which i've never heard of before. Maybe it means add sugar into secondary?anybody got clarification on this. Its been years since i've done these kind of kits
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Quote from: danger_zone on June 11, 2015, 04:42:17 PM
The instructions also call for a sugar/glucose "refermentation" which i've never heard of before. Maybe it means add sugar into secondary?anybody got clarification on this.
I assume they mean priming sugar for carbonation?
Ah yeah. That makes sense now
What amount of Sugar? if its like 180g or so, its priming.
It doesn't actually give an amount
Actually of ours a stout it should be less, otherwise it will be too fizzy.
Use an online calculator.
Right,so after a hydrometer mishap over the weekend, I finally got this on a wee while ago. My phone's acting up so apologies for the lack of pics,but it went pretty much the same as Drzava's review
Started by rehydrating the yeast in 100ml of water as per instructions. I then put the 2 cans of extract in warm water to soften the contents and heated up 6 litres of water. I emptied both cans in the fv and dissolved with the hot water. One of the cans was super dark and the other was a lot paler and didn't smell as malty. The ring pulls were dead handy so no need to frustrate yourself trying to get it open with a can opener.
When I filled it up to the recommended 18 litres it was still a little on the warm side and I pitched at 24 degrees which is the higher end of the suggested temps. It has a great dark colour to it with a nice brown/tan tint to it. O.g was 1048 with no indication anywhere of what it should be
The cynic in me would suggest the two kits are actually the same (they actually both have the exact same picture of a glass of stout on the front), with the Imperial dropping the lactose and being brewed short. The OGs are in line too (mine was about 1.041 disregarding the lactose). 1.048 seems pretty low for an Imperial Stout too!
Ha it wouldn't surprise me. Its bubbling away nicely now anyway
The airlock activity was going insane for the first 6 days with this then it was constant for another 3 days then died down but was still fairly active for another 3 days or so. The fermentation must have stuck somewhere along the line, I ended up with an fg of 1018 or so which only leaves it at around 4% which is low for a regular stout never mind an imperial stout which is a shame. From what I've read about these kits they seem to get stuck a lot
Tastewise its nice. It has a nice dark toffee/malty flavour so hopefully over the months I mature it for it ends up grand
How did this turn out in the end?
I haven't sampled any bottles yet, it's only bottled about 4 weeks or so, I was going to leave it at least 8 to age a bit considering its supposed to be an imperial but you've twisted my arm. I'll sample one or four later....all in the name of research of course
This kit turned out terrible. Horribly sweet liquorice taste from it that I'm not sure will improve any better. We sampled some at our last meetup and all but 1 person didn't like it. From what I've read, the majority of these kits aren't getting great reviews so I'd stay clear of them and stick with the old reliables
Guys to judge how an imperial stout tastes which is only 2 months old is a bit unfair, I'd not touch it for 6 months to allow the dominant flavours to round off. Our GCB barrel aged stout only started winning competitions after 18 months and was judged to be to green before that.
There is something else we are missing there as OG is very low for an imperial :-\
Coming back to the taste it sounds like a sort of phenol which can sometimes reflect contamination from wild yeast or more likely strong chlorine in water used to start, was there any treatment for chlorine used?
It may indeed be a poor kit but best to rule out other elements to help us all before we stone ;)
Any chance to get a bottle to the RDS this week end as there is a panel of prospective BJCP judges in training and they can give you their expert opinion?
If you had an OG of 1.048 and there was mention of extra sugar, you messed up and didn't add the sugar. An imperial stout should have an OG of MIN 1.075 by BJCP standards.
A 7 gram pack should be sufficient for a 1.058 beer and would grow up enough yeast for plow through the missing sugar edition.
That would be my thinking of it. I don't do kits but just trying to figure it out.
To even call this an imperial is ridiculous. I don't think this needs to age much more. So far nearly all these kits seen to have been rubbish.
It's 4%...i think it's pretty fair to judge at this stage.
Quote from: Garry on June 11, 2015, 07:21:07 PM
Quote from: danger_zone on June 11, 2015, 04:42:17 PM
The instructions also call for a sugar/glucose "refermentation" which i've never heard of before. Maybe it means add sugar into secondary?anybody got clarification on this.
I assume they mean priming sugar for carbonation?
Ok I missed this bit,
No they don't this is nothing to do with carbonation in bottles and here lies the problem.
The yeast supplied is not big enough to handle a big fermentation OG initially and Nigel was right you missed a step, what you do is after initial fermentation say 24-48 hours in you chuck a prescribed amount of sugar in to hit your desired big OG!!
Think of it like a slingshot where you get the yeast to start off and then you chuck in some sugar, I'd probably go brewing sugar but ordinary would probably do.
To be fair to yourselves the kit should have explained the principle of what they were asking and the method along with recommended levels for say 6,7,8% final.
I am also thinking it was formulated to overcome the normal thinning you get with adding sugar to recipes, so could have been a little more treacly as a result
Fact remains sorry guys instructions weren't followed and we need to be more considered in criticism :(
Does it say in the instructions what amount of sugar to do the "refermentation" with? If it doesn't and there's no mention of what the gravity should be I would say instructions followed. I'd like to see a proper look at the instructions.
Quote from: Ciderhead on August 25, 2015, 06:20:31 PM
Guys to judge how an imperial stout tastes which is only 2 months old is a bit unfair, I'd not touch it for 6 months to allow the dominant flavours to round off. Our GCB barrel aged stout only started winning competitions after 18 months and was judged to be to green before that.
There is something else we are missing there as OG is very low for an imperial :-\
Coming back to the taste it sounds like a sort of phenol which can sometimes reflect contamination from wild yeast or more likely strong chlorine in water used to start, was there any treatment for chlorine used?
It may indeed be a poor kit but best to rule out other elements to help us all before we stone ;)
Any chance to get a bottle to the RDS this week end as there is a panel of prospective BJCP judges in training and they can give you their expert opinion?
I agree its still very green. I'll forget about for another couple of months and give it another go. I didn't use any kind of treatment for it so the chlorine could be a possibility. Unfortunately I won't be at the RDS this week but maybe I'll give a bottle to one of the lads to take down to get a BJCP opinion
Quote from: nigel_c on August 25, 2015, 06:42:43 PM
If you had an OG of 1.048 and there was mention of extra sugar, you messed up and didn't add the sugar. An imperial stout should have an OG of MIN 1.075 by BJCP standards.
A 7 gram pack should be sufficient for a 1.058 beer and would grow up enough yeast for plow through the missing sugar edition.
That would be my thinking of it. I don't do kits but just trying to figure it out.
I don't normally do kits either but there was no mention of how much sugar to add and at what stage so I guess its just a case of poor instructions
Quote from: armedcor on August 26, 2015, 12:26:22 AM
Does it say in the instructions what amount of sugar to do the "refermentation" with? If it doesn't and there's no mention of what the gravity should be I would say instructions followed. I'd like to see a proper look at the instructions.
no mention of amounts or what the gravity should be. I posted pics of the full instructions in my OP. That's all that came with it
Well then I think it's fair to say instructions were followed.
The Instructions are rubbish.
I will start a fresh thread on the Imperial IPA (OG 1.042)