HBC - Extra Irish Stout - Full Extract Kit

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baggybill

Always learning...
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First off, a big thanks to the HBF & The Homebrew Company for organising the raffle and putting up the prizes :hat:

I was lucky enough to win the above kit and put the brew on Saturday evening, 15th August. Here is my review, which I’ll update as it goes along.

This is the first time I’ve done an extract kit, having done a few one can, two can and AG beers to date. It’s also the first time I’ve used my new Burco 30L boiler and the no-chill cube.

My first impression of the kit when opening the box was… very impressed! That’s a lot of kit for ~£16 especially if you compare it price wise to buying say a Coopers stout and a Brew Enhancer kit for near the same money.
Kit contents:

HBC-EIS-Kit-2.jpg

~810g mixed steeping grains (Roasted Barley, Chocolate Malt, Carapils Malt)
~40g Galena hops (60 mins)
2 x 1.5kg Light Malt Extract
1 x muslin sock for the grains
1 x 11g packet Safale US-05
1 x Whirfloc tablet

And of course the instructions which are basic but sufficient (at least for me):

HBC-EIS-Kit-2b.jpg

First mistake I made was thinking I could steep the grains in my 16L stock pot. 2 litres of water in this was about 2cm deep – not good enough to steep anything so… pressure cooker to the rescue. I warmed up the LME in a pot of water at the same time, see below:

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Temperature of the mash seemed to fluctuate over the 30 minutes required, which I reckoned was due to the small amount of grain/water. I kept it as close to 67’ as I could by turning on the gas for a short burst now and again. Also gave it a good poke/stir every 10 mins to make sure all the grain got steeped. Final mash result below:

HBC-EIS-Kit-4.jpg

Used my 16L stock pot to dunk sparge (as opposed to 'rinse' in the instructions) the grain bag for 10 minutes with water I had already prepared @ 80’

Basically, I just chucked a couple of litres from a boiling kettle into it about 10 mins before steep finished. Squeezed the living daylights out the bag and the wort was still running out thick and black. Felt I could have used a lot more water (same with the mash) and extracted even more wort but… stuck to the recipe exactly.

Onto the boil…

HBC-EIS-Kit-5.jpg

While I was getting the mash on, I fired up my new 30L Burco with ~20L of filtered water, figuring that this plus ~3L from the mash/sparge and ~3L LME would get my 26L final boil required as per instructions. It was spot on, eyeballing it 1cm below the 27L max mark.

Although there is no hop bag supplied with the kit, my boiler has the standard tap and no filter fitted so I used my own – purchased on another, earlier order from HBC (quality hop bags btw!).

The boiler kept a great rolling boil with no issues at all and the supplied Whirfloc tablet went in 15 mins from the end.

I don’t have a wort chiller as I plan on overnight no-chilling to break up my brewing time in the kitchen (read - get the wife off my back for hogging the kitchen!) so, into the cube it went. This kit only had a 60 min hop addition so no late hoppings to worry about.

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And then off to the fridge (big mistake) for overnight cooling.

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I say mistake because when I checked the temperature in the morning, the fridge was warm inside!

The size/volume of the boiling wort cube was heating up the enclosed fridge rather than the fridge cooling it down. It was sitting about 30’ at 8am. So, outside it went to sit in the shade on the concrete slabs for a few hours and it was down to about 22’ by mid-day.

From now on, I’ll leave it on the garage floor (or out the back) to cool down overnight.

I then transferred the wort to a proper fermentation vessel, pouring it from a height (smells amazing!), through a sieve, to catch any grain/hop debris, which also aerated the liquid at the same time.

FV only shows 20L for some reason, don’t think I boiled off 6L so it’s probably out a bit – I’ll calibrate it once done.

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Sample drawn off for OG which came in at 1.052 and yeast was re-hydrated (personal preference) and pitched when ready.

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Finally, sealed up and tucked away in a fermentation chamber @ ~20’

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Brew was starting to bubble about ~3 hours later when I checked and was bubbling like mad the following morning…

As of yesterday, Thursday 20th Aug, bubble lock has stopped completely. I intend to leave it 10 – 14 days for yeast clear up though.

Kit Summary

Pro’s
Great kit for the money, quality yeast included, wort smelled and tasted superb, hoping for an amazing stout from this.

Only one large pot required for the 26L boil, mash just needs a pot/vessel big enough for a couple of litres of water and about a kilo of grain – my old pressure cooker was more than adequate.


Con’s
It’s a lot of work with a 30min mash & 60min boil for an extract kit. Plus a large pot is required for a 26L boil.

If you have a bigger vessel for the mash (e.g. £10 quid Asda 24L coolbox) and chances are you do if you already have a large boiler, you could just get the full on AG kit i.e. replace the tins of LME with pale malt grain.

You have to do a temperature controlled mash and a 60 minute boil anyway… not just steeping some grains, boiling some DME/LME in a small stock pot and adding water to make 20-23L in your FV (which I thought was the benefit of extract brews).


Disclaimer – I’ve only been making beer just over a year and this is my first and only extract kit to date, ymmv :cheers:
 
Great review. Mine (American Brown Ale) finished fermenting after 4 days (I will be bottling tomorrow).
I am really looking forward to trying this as a finished beer as early samples point to a cracking brew.
 
As I said on another thread, you could do these kits, and any extract brew, with a much smaller and shorter boil. Boiling the extract is actually pointless, you could simply boil the hops in the wort from the grains, in a much smaller pot, and if you use more bittering hops you can cut the length of the boil.
 
I did this just over three weeks. I spoke to Shane at HBC and this is one of his favourite kits. He suggested leaving in FV at least 2 weeks before bottling. I did just under 3 weeks and it as been in the bottle a week. (I wish I used by barrel. I have already tried one and it was bloody lovely. Needs a little longer but I will be opening a couple more this weekend.

Shane said he brews it to 21l and I followed suit.
 
As I said on another thread, you could do these kits, and any extract brew, with a much smaller and shorter boil. Boiling the extract is actually pointless, you could simply boil the hops in the wort from the grains, in a much smaller pot, and if you use more bittering hops you can cut the length of the boil.

I was going to say that at the end of my review....:p:p
 
Only got around to racking this today out of the primary. Did intend to go 3 weeks but work & time constraints delayed me so 4 weeks at 19.5' it was (fully sealed, bubble lock in place, and never opened or disturbed).

FG was 1.010 making the abv ~5.5% Sample tasted lovely even though it was warm and flat and I thought, "I'm having some of that tonight..."

So... into a 2 litre PET some went, hour and a bit in the freezer, then force carbed (tyre valve cap), back into the fridge for a couple of hours to settle and then..................

HBC-EIS-Final.jpg

Tastes amazing for a 4 week old beer, no hint of 'twang' whatsoever, totally spanks the Coopers and Wilkos stout's I've made in the past.

In fairness though, I haven't tried any two can stout kits (e.g. St Peters) or an AG stout (yet!) but have to say I'm absolutely delighted with it :-D

The rest of the brew was racked to another fv and is currently cold crashing in my fridge before kegging it in a few days time. Something tells me it ain't gonna last toooo long once it's in a corny :cheers:

Thanks again to the Homebrew Company and the HBF Mods for making this happen, 10 out of 10 for the kit and final product from me, well done :hat:
 
I've just finished a barrel of the HBC Irish Stout (not in one sitting, obviously). An excellent, well-rounded brew, ideal for winter drinking. I would definitely make this again.

I thought it was much more successful than the previous HBC kits I have brewed: the best bitter and the porter. The latter turned out rather pale and 'thin' tasting. I think this may be because the supplied grain bag was rather small for the amount of grain, and so it did not fully mash. I prodded the grain bag for the stout much more while mashing, and that seemed to help extract more colour and flavour. For both kits, I added the malt extract direct to the fermenter, rather than boiling with the wort and hops.

Overall, the HBC kits seem excellent value for what you get.
 
I've just finished a barrel of the HBC Irish Stout (not in one sitting, obviously). An excellent, well-rounded brew, ideal for winter drinking. I would definitely make this again.

I thought it was much more successful than the previous HBC kits I have brewed: the best bitter and the porter. The latter turned out rather pale and 'thin' tasting. I think this may be because the supplied grain bag was rather small for the amount of grain, and so it did not fully mash. I prodded the grain bag for the stout much more while mashing, and that seemed to help extract more colour and flavour. For both kits, I added the malt extract direct to the fermenter, rather than boiling with the wort and hops.

Overall, the HBC kits seem excellent value for what you get.

I would forget the bag unless its massive and do without and strain. When i tried them in the past thought they were too small as well. Glad your beer turned out well, i love Stout.
 
Overall, the HBC kits seem excellent value for what you get.

+1

They're not packaged quite as well as their competitors (several of mine have come with hops that aren't vacuum packed) but they seem OK. They're now coming with Mangrove Jacks pouches of LME rather than un-branded tins. Like others I don't understand why the instructions say full-volume boil, I do reduced-volume boils with mine, then you don't need a long cooling stage.

I've just kegged the Porter so will report on how it turns out: short brew, 18L rather than 23L to hopefully give it more flavour.
 
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