The Homebrew Company Brown Porter All Grain kit Review

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fbsf

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Whurr the ol' M5 crosses the ancient M4...
Cheers MD!

Ok, now I know this is AG so might not be considered a kit, but it's as near to a kit as AG gets.

Firstly, you aren't completely sure what goes into it - you get a bag of mixed grains, and two bags of unidentified hops (which I suspect are Goldings) marked only with their boil time. You also get a sachet of Windsor yeast and a whirlfloc tablet, all for £15.

The instructions are adequate, and assume you understand terms such as mash and sparge. They do give you an approx og reading and a final abv target which does help.

It all went ok, and following the instructions hit target - 2 points, so given my skills are still at novice AG level, I was happy with that.

So, how does it taste? Bloody lovely that's how. It's got a really nice nutty malt flavour, with a reasonable balance of bitterness and hop aroma - not one for the punk ipa freaks though.

It was meant to come out at about 4.5% but I used S04 instead of the supplied Windsor (long story...) which got it down to 1.006 meaning around 4.9%.

My only gripe is that for a beginner, whilst its easy to make it would have been nice to know what grains and hops were present, so you could learn what grains make which taste. It would also be good for tweaking - say if you wanted to make it a little darker/sweeter etc.

Overall? A good 9 out of 10, and definitely going to be brewed again.
 
My first ever AG which I called Piddles Dribble was one of these kits. The Homebrews ESB. I brewed it the beginning of September and have just started to drink it. As above, being the first brew, I made mountains of mistakes, spilling wort missed all my targets etc.But its turned out into a nice drinking beer. I'm impressed.
As said above the kit arrived in unidentified bags so you don't know what all the ingredients were, but at that stage your not really bothered. Put A into B add C approach. ( bit like the old MF! kitchen cabinets )
Was a good starter kit, but I would not be tempted to choose another. not because of quality or price or end result, as all are acceptable.
Just that I like to know what I'm playing with.

As a starter AG " kit" I would recommend it.
 
Just a quick update - it's still tasting fantastic both from the corny and bottle, but don't overchill it before serving - it needs to be at around 10-14 degrees I'd say. I brought a few brews into work and put them all into the fridge (which it transipres is around 2 degrees), and the toasty nutty porter that I love ended up tasting like liquid twiglets - and that comment was shared by a few tasters.

So lesson learned there!
 
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