Home Brew Company Particular Peter's Stout AG mash kit

I haven't yet ctually received my mash kit yet (hope to early next week though). But seeing as the mod team are doing such a good job getting the forum members free stuff and discounts I'd thought I'd at least try and make a good fist of doing a review.

I plan on doing my kit next weekend and will do a brew day report. Once bottled I plan on doing a taste review at two four and six weeks. But to start off with I'll say a little about why I chose this particular kit:

I only really make mainly malt forward beers, stout's & porters milds as well as bitters as I'm not much of a hop head. I don't like anything more than about 40 IBU's. So the choice was always going to be a stout or a porter for me. The porter looked a little bit too much like Fullers London Porter, which is my favourite porter and one that I make on a semi regular basis. So I wanted something different.

Before I won the kit I had planned to make a Beamish clone next weekend, dispite never having actually tried Beamish but I wanted to do a Dry Irish stout as I haven't made a stout for a while. So when I won one of the kits I plumped for the PP stout kit as firstly, I do maxi-BIAB in a 20L pot so I can't do a beer bigger than about 5.5% abv as I cant fit all the grain and water in my pot, so the bigger 6% stout was not an option for me (the PP stout is 4.9% abv) and secondly the addition of chocoate malt seems it will be a little bit more complex, flavour wise, than a simple bog standard Dry Irish Stout.

That's great MyQul. Exactly what we want, it will be great to read everyone's experiences.

The HBC porter and stout kits get fabulous reviews. I reckon yours will be excellent, good choice.

Mash is now on and away we go!

Sparging now and making a mess of the kitchen - good job the other half is out :-D

All finished now so here's the brewday report....

No idea what the amounts of ingredients were as they came all mixed in a bag but he HBC company site states there is Marris Otter, Roast Barley, Flaked Barley and Chocolate. Hops: Herkules - No idea about the IBU's

OG 1.047 ABV% 4.9 based on 72% efficiency 23L

I am a Maxi-BIAB(er) which means I make a concentrated wort and then dilute in the fermenter. My Pot is 20L

Mashed for 40mins at between 66C-67C. I don't know exactly as my (analogue) thermometer is 2.5C-3.0C out so my mash temp according to my therm. was between 69.5C-70C before adjustment. I prefer my beers to be full bodied , thick, almost chewy so I erred closer to it being 3C out rather than 2.5C. Stirred the mash at 20mins to help with efficiency. Lost 0C during the mash.

I then did two dunk sparges the first with about 7L and the second 3.4L (two kettle fulls of 1.7L)

No idea how much hops were in the two little vac packed packs of hops but one simply said 60min and the second said 0min. I also added 5g (about 5 IBU's worth) of challenger as boiling hops in a concentrated wort leads to a lower hop utilisation. I added the challenger at 50mins as I almost forgot about the extra 5 IBU I usually add to any recipe. The 0min additions I just added as soon as I turned the heat off rather than waiting for the wort to get to 80C as its a real PITA stirring the wort for ages to try to lower the temp and adds loads of time onto brew day. Clibit tells me it's ok to add flame out hops at 100C, so that's what I did

After the boil I cooled some wort to 20C and took a gravity reading to see how much I needed to dilute by. The reading was 1.071. The concentrated wort had a lovely dark chocolate brown colour to it.

Using Brewers Friend Dilution calculator diluting down to 1.047 OG would give me 22.66L So almost hit the target OG. Think If I had used a third kettle full of water on the second sparge I would have hit it. Am really pleased with 22.66 though as I always aim for target brewlength + or - 1L

I no chill in the fermenter (leave to cool over night), so passed the boiling wort through a seive to strain out the hops as well as a paint strainer to catch the floury stuff you get in the bottom of the grain bag. There wasn't the amount of the floury stuff I usually get from my LHBS. Maybe the crush wasn't as fine?

I diluted down to 22L and will take another gravity check tommorow for the final dilution amount - have got caught out before diluting the whole amount and getting a lower OG than planned.

I will pitch the yeast tommorow evening as well. The kit came with US05 but will but repitching washed Mauribrew 514 English Ale slurry from my last brew as it's now too warm in my little brewing corner of the kitchen for the US05

The wort still looks luxurious and deep dark chocolatey brown even diluted. Think this is going to be a superb stout if it tastes as good as it looks

All in all another fun and succesful brewday :party:

Can't wait to start mine, probably next week. Will be interesting as went for the double IPA and will be bottling my own version tomorrow so see how they stack up

Just took another gravity reading and it seems like my initial reading was a little off. Efficiency was a teeny bit better than the stated 72% as I got a 23.4L brewlength haven't done the calculation but probably 73% efficiency.

Had a slurp of the trial jar, it was bloody georgeous. Rich roasty and chocolatey. I 've got high hopes for this stout. Will top up to 23.4L and pitch the yeast later this eve as I've only just taken it out the fridge and it needs time to warm up to room temp

Great review :thumb:

Just took a gravity reading 1.012, after 7 days in the FV. Target FG is 1.009. It's got another 7 days in the FV till I bottle it so think it'll hit its target.

Had a slurp of th trial jar, taste is amazing even after just 7 days in the FV and no conditioning, so I polished the trial jar off

Sounds very promising!

Anyone who hasn't done an AG stout really should get one made!

I make my stouts around 6%, tend to do 4.5 litres in a demijohn these days, split off from the main batch of wort, and then bottle about 12 x 330ml bottles. I do occasional 10L AG stouts too. I drink much more pale beer but sometimes a bottle of AG stout is just exactly what I want, and I rarely buy stout as good as my own. I like them strong, sippers rather than gulpers. Lots of flavour.

Don't want to preempt my first taste test after two weeks conditioning but I could problably start drinking this straight out the FV

MyQul said:

Don't want to preempt my first taste test after two weeks conditioning but I could problably start drinking this straight out the FV

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That will be messy



I am keeping an eye on what you make of this.. I am thinking of doing a stout for a change at some point and have never ever done a stout. CLibit suggested trying an AG stout saying it is in his experience much nicer than commercial stouts (which I am a bit disappointed with)

Well it's had two weeks conditioning now and this is one damn tasty stout
It's very rich and thick with a verg good mouth feel.

Having had only two weeks conditioning of the roasted grains the roasted barley is dominating at the moment with a quite pronounced roasty tasted but not too much, not harsh like you can get with young beers made with lots of black malt - although I do like bitter, roasty flavours a lot. I can taste a little of the the chocolate malt but just at the back of the palette. As this beer gets more conditioning I expect there to be a reversal in the roasted grains with the barley mellowing out and becoming more rounded and the choccy coming more to the front.

I think the ABV% at 4.9 is just right not too heavy and not to light, a lovely session stout.

This beer is still young but absolutely deliciously drinkable even at 2 weeks.It can only get better. I wonder if they'll be any left to do a four week and six week tasting report :-D

Sounds bloody marvellous, I can almost taste it sat here at my desk. I need to get another stout on!

Sounds good , I will be trying a stout late summer early autumn. As I have yet to do a Stout I may get a kit like this to work with :thumb:

I definately think this is one of the best beers I've brewed. Could be because It ticks every box with my personal tastes though.

It's actually a little higher than 4.9% at 5.18%. Before I bottled it, it was 4.9% (FG 1.010) but I'm hoping that the 3 points it's dropped is due to the priming suger and that I've finally nuked the wild yeast infection I had in my bottles. I did a force test by putting a bottle in the boiler cupboard (which is probalbly about 30C) to try to max out FG quickly so if there was any wild yeast in there I would be able to tell. But I wont be 100% sure until about a month after bottling as wild yeast (or at least the strain In my bottles) seems to very slowly (and relentlessly) over attenuate my beer

It's been four weeks conditioning now. It's still a lovely stout but I said that from the off. As far as changes in flavour profile, as I suspected the the Roasted barley has mellowed out and the chocolate has come to the fore - but notnearly as much as I thought it might do. It's still quite a roasty stout, perhaps not for everyone but I love it. I've drank about half of it so far but that's only because I've been restraining myself - but not much

5 weeks conditioning. Getting into the realms of superb/sublime. Choccy malt is at last starting to come through

Sadly i have missed out, mine did not last long enough:cry:

stevej said:

Sadly i have missed out, mine did not last long enough:cry:

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Mine won't be lasting much longer. Going to the LHBS to buy ingredients for my clone on sat