[Review] Gozdawa Imperial Stout

[danger_zone]

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

[Garry]

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?

[danger_zone]

Ah yeah. That makes sense now

[johnrm]

What amount of Sugar? if its like 180g or so, its priming.

[danger_zone]

It doesn't actually give an amount

[johnrm]

Actually of ours a stout it should be less, otherwise it will be too fizzy.
Use an online calculator.

[danger_zone]

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

[Drzava]

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!

[danger_zone]

Ha it wouldn't surprise me. Its bubbling away nicely now anyway

[danger_zone]

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

[LordEoin]

How did this turn out in the end?

[danger_zone]

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

[danger_zone]

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

[Leann ull]

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?

[nigel_c]

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.