Playing with the Stag

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treebeard

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I have been brewing a few Festival kits, my favourite is Golden Stag. So now I'm about to start another Stag brew I thought I might play around with it a bit.

I am thinking, adding 200gm of brewing sugar to the wort to bring up the alcohol a tad, ditching the supplied yeast in favour of US 05 and adding an additional 20gm Amarillo hops to the Cascade and Columbus Hops this would make 70gm of hops in total.

I would be interested in your thoughts, be gentle with me I'm new to brewing and still learning from you guys.

Martin
 
I have this kit to do, you could split the kit and do two 12 litre batches with different yeast and hops, I like using falconer's flight hop pellets, I added them to a woodfordes sundew kit, it was amazing, full of tropical flavour

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I have this kit to do, you could split the kit and do two 12 litre batches with different yeast and hops, I like using falconer's flight hop pellets, I added them to a woodfordes sundew kit, it was amazing, full of tropical flavour

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That sounds good. I really like the citrus flavour of Cascade I don't want to overdo the hops. The last Stag was really nice but I found the hop flavour diminished quite a bit during conditioning.
 
I have this kit to do, you could split the kit and do two 12 litre batches with different yeast and hops, I like using falconer's flight hop pellets, I added them to a woodfordes sundew kit, it was amazing, full of tropical flavour

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Willy i use Falconers Flight on Sundew, its a great hop mix, i used 30g last time it was nice but in my opinion it need 50-60g i am not a hop head I like heavy malted beers but some times a nice light cold hoppy beer hits the spot:thumb:
 
That sounds good. I really like the citrus flavour of Cascade I don't want to overdo the hops. The last Stag was really nice but I found the hop flavour diminished quite a bit during conditioning.
How long do you age the stag for, before drinking it, falconer's flight hops seem to keep there aroma and taste, not that it lasts long to drink lol

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I have been brewing a few Festival kits, my favourite is Golden Stag. So now I'm about to start another Stag brew I thought I might play around with it a bit.

I am thinking, adding 200gm of brewing sugar to the wort to bring up the alcohol a tad, ditching the supplied yeast in favour of US 05 and adding an additional 20gm Amarillo hops to the Cascade and Columbus Hops this would make 70gm of hops in total.

I would be interested in your thoughts, be gentle with me I'm new to brewing and still learning from you guys.

Martin
Try a lager yeast , use light spray malt instead of sugar and dry hop with 50g of falconers flight. you wont be disapointed.
 
Willy i use Falconers Flight on Sundew, its a great hop mix, i used 30g last time it was nice but in my opinion it need 50-60g i am not a hop head I like heavy malted beers but some times a nice light cold hoppy beer hits the spot:thumb:
I put 25g in fermenter before topping up to 23 litres and then 75g dry hop for 5-7 days, it's a tropical bomb, amazing


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How long do you age the stag for, before drinking it, falconer's flight hops seem to keep there aroma and taste, not that it lasts long to drink lol

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I had some after roughly two weeks that tasted good then some after about 6 weeks and did notice quite a difference. It was lovely and clear though and still a very pleasant pint.
 
I had some after roughly two weeks that tasted good then some after about 6 weeks and did notice quite a difference. It was lovely and clear though and still a very pleasant pint.
I do the woodfordes wherry and it's nice after two weeks in bottle, I prefer that kit in its early stages plus I add an extra 500g dry malt to it

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I do the woodfordes wherry and it's nice after two weeks in bottle, I prefer that kit in its early stages plus I add an extra 500g dry malt to it

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Yes I have a feeling the Stag is best drunk young. When I did the final gravity before bottling I drank what was in the vial and I was blown away how good it was. I guess my goal is to preserve that flavour for longer.
 
Yes I have a feeling the Stag is best drunk young. When I did the final gravity before bottling I drank what was in the vial and I was blown away how good it was. I guess my goal is to preserve that flavour for longer.
Do half the kit with the kit yeast and the hops that come with it, that should give it more aroma,then the other half add your choice of hops plus US-05 YEAST

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Do half the kit with the kit yeast and the hops that come with it, that should give it more aroma,then the other half add your choice of hops plus US-05 YEAST

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I think you're right I probably should spit the brew for a direct comparison. :thumb:
 
I think you're right I probably should spit the brew for a direct comparison. :thumb:
Plus it will improve the normal one cuz there is less amount of beer but same amount of hops, so should help it

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Yes I have a feeling the Stag is best drunk young. When I did the final gravity before bottling I drank what was in the vial and I was blown away how good it was. I guess my goal is to preserve that flavour for longer.
You deffo need to do a split kit, one with the kit yeast and hops to 12 litres, then the other with US-05 yeast and your choice of hops, I add 25g hop pellets to fermenter before adding the yeast, works well with the single kits I have done, and worked very well with the woodfordes sundew kit

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Ok- an update how this turned out. Brewed short to 21 litres. I added 200gm light DME which produced an OG 1.058 and a FG of 1.009 giving 6.4% ABV. Fermented for 11 days using US 05 yeast instead of the kit yeast, then added my dry hop packet plus 25gm of Amarillo and dry hopped it for 5 days. Racked to bottling vessel with 125gm priming sugar (this was an error I forgot I had brewed short so is a tad lively :doh:) Bottled and left in a warm place @ 18° for two weeks until clear then in a cool place @ 11° until yesterday.

So now the important bit. This needs to be served very cold, at 10° it's very nice, lovely and clear but too lively and takes an age to pour. At 5° it's a fantastic hot summers day beverage, nice citrus aroma and big hop flavour, good head retention. I still believe this needs to be drunk young but I will save a couple of bottles to condition more and see if the hop flavour diminishes.

I am going to mess with The Festival Razorback next, as my experience continues to grow with the great help of this forum this is all leading to AG. My ultimate goal. :)

IMG_1436.jpg
 
Ok- an update how this turned out. Brewed short to 21 litres. I added 200gm light DME which produced an OG 1.058 and a FG of 1.009 giving 6.4% ABV. Fermented for 11 days using US 05 yeast instead of the kit yeast, then added my dry hop packet plus 25gm of Amarillo and dry hopped it for 5 days. Racked to bottling vessel with 125gm priming sugar (this was an error I forgot I had brewed short so is a tad lively :doh:) Bottled and left in a warm place @ 18° for two weeks until clear then in a cool place @ 11° until yesterday.

So now the important bit. This needs to be served very cold, at 10° it's very nice, lovely and clear but too lively and takes an age to pour. At 5° it's a fantastic hot summers day beverage, nice citrus aroma and big hop flavour, good head retention. I still believe this needs to be drunk young but I will save a couple of bottles to condition more and see if the hop flavour diminishes.

I am going to mess with The Festival Razorback next, as my experience continues to grow with the great help of this forum this is all leading to AG. My ultimate goal. :)
I'm drinking stag now, no tweaking, tastes lovely, will try a different yeast next time, just bottled Young's American pale ale, no tweaking, tried bottle after 7days, very nice, another week should be even better

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I'm drinking stag now, no tweaking, tastes lovely, will try a different yeast next time, just bottled Young's American pale ale, no tweaking, tried bottle after 7days, very nice, another week should be even better

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I'm currently drinking a batch of Razorback just brewed with the standard ingredients in the box, that's another great kit from Festival as well as the Stag. I have a Ciderworks waiting in the wings to get on it's been a bit too warm to start. I'm just glad I had built up a stock. :)
 
That sounds good. I really like the citrus flavour of Cascade I don't want to overdo the hops. The last Stag was really nice but I found the hop flavour diminished quite a bit during conditioning.

I don't believe you can overdo it with Cascade, I dryhopped a Pale Ale with 100g of Cascade and it was fine, if you want a pungent hop try Mosaic, it's the ticket 👍
 
I don't believe you can overdo it with Cascade, I dryhopped a Pale Ale with 100g of Cascade and it was fine, if you want a pungent hop try Mosaic, it's the ticket 👍

Funnily enough I was thinking about adding and extra 30g of Cascade to the 75g hop packet thats comes in the Razorback kit. The kit is hopped with Simcoe, Centennial and Summit. Do you think Mosaic would blend better?
 
Funnily enough I was thinking about adding and extra 30g of Cascade to the 75g hop packet thats comes in the Razorback kit. The kit is hopped with Simcoe, Centennial and Summit. Do you think Mosaic would blend better?

Sorry I'm not experienced enough with blending hops but I can't see why not, Mosaic is my fav hop,if you want to try it buy M and S Mosaic Pale Ale (Adnams brew it) its awesome .
Good luck, quality kits you are using so you can't go far wrong 👍
 
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