Disaster and redemption

[Llanbrewer]

I'd brewed up a Guinea's Stout kit from LoveBrewing, and kegged it on day 11 and put the keg in a water bath for the carbonation. After about 36 hours the bath water was full of beer and the keg was floating. The bath temperature was high, so I switched off the immersion heater to slow/stop the fermentation and cool the keg to reduce the pressure. The head space was pretty big by that stage as about 7 litres had been pushed out. I feared the worst.

Having let it cool overnight, I siphoned off the beer/bath mix and removed the keg from the trug. It was clear that there was still a leak from the bottom of the bung, so I slackened the keg top to relieve gas pressure. Out of interest, I tried some of the beer. To my amazement, it's very good, and has no unfinished taste to it. Obviously, it's not carbonated, but it has a fresh caramel taste to it that is very welcome.

So, here we have it, a bit of a cock up, but a beer that's tasting so good after only two days into carbonation that I'm tasting some now. The other LoveBrewing kits have tasted ok when going into cool conditioning after a week of carbonation, but have improved considerably after a couple of weeks. The Rocket Pale Ale has gone, according to the Supreme Commander, from "You know I don't like beer" to sneaky swigs from my glass in the course of a fortnight's conditioning.

What I suspect happened is that I'd got the water bath too warm for steady carbonation, and got a bit of a racing ferment of the priming sugar, but by some miracle, there's a highly drinkable light stout after only 15 days with cursory cool conditioning overnight.

 

[Sandimas]

Can you tell us bit more about those Lovebrewing kits e.g. looking at their website they say there's extra hops for the kits, is that for dry hopping or is there a boil stage involved?

They look pretty decent but not seen any reviews before and not a lot of people mention them on the various brewing forums I'm on: no one has ever reviewed them on here http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=61597

 

[Personal91]

I'd brewed up a Guinea's Stout kit from LoveBrewing, and kegged it on day 11 and put the keg in a water bath for the carbonation. After about 36 hours the bath water was full of beer and the keg was floating. The bath temperature was high, so I switched off the immersion heater to slow/stop the fermentation and cool the keg to reduce the pressure. The head space was pretty big by that stage as about 7 litres had been pushed out. I feared the worst.

Having let it cool overnight, I siphoned off the beer/bath mix and removed the keg from the trug. It was clear that there was still a leak from the bottom of the bung, so I slackened the keg top to relieve gas pressure. Out of interest, I tried some of the beer. To my amazement, it's very good, and has no unfinished taste to it. Obviously, it's not carbonated, but it has a fresh caramel taste to it that is very welcome.

So, here we have it, a bit of a cock up, but a beer that's tasting so good after only two days into carbonation that I'm tasting some now. The other LoveBrewing kits have tasted ok when going into cool conditioning after a week of carbonation, but have improved considerably after a couple of weeks. The Rocket Pale Ale has gone, according to the Supreme Commander, from "You know I don't like beer" to sneaky swigs from my glass in the course of a fortnight's conditioning.

What I suspect happened is that I'd got the water bath too warm for steady carbonation, and got a bit of a racing ferment of the priming sugar, but by some miracle, there's a highly drinkable light stout after only 15 days with cursory cool conditioning overnight.

Sounds like a winning situation here tbh...mostly xD

 

[Llanbrewer]

Can you tell us bit more about those Lovebrewing kits e.g. looking at their website they say there's extra hops for the kits, is that for dry hopping or is there a boil stage involved?

They look pretty decent but not seen any reviews before and not a lot of people mention them on the various brewing forums I'm on: no one has ever reviewed them on here http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=61597

As I'm swigging one as I type (well, I have put the glass down for a second) I'll do my best. I've been using the extract kits, so there's no boil involved. Dry hopping is done on the 5th day in the fv, and just consists of adding boiling water to the hops provided, and dropping them into the fv.

The quality is excellent. I started off with the Kentish Ale, which is a Shepherd Neame Spitfire taste alike. Not my favourite beer, but pretty close to the original.

Rocket Pale Ale - even the wife likes this.

Wills Ale - first rate. The second batch is two days off kegging.

Sheepdog's Pride Suffolk Ale. A bit of a cock up here, as I got the mixing wrong and ended up making too much. As a result, the gravity is about 3.5% rather than 4 %. It's cold conditioning at the moment, but tastes light and crisp. An ideal summer bitter.

I really can't fault the kits. I've done an experimental batch of AG, and am waiting to see what that's like before deciding which way to go. The kits are just so damn good that I may try a few more before moving on, even if I decide to go AG.

They do AG kits and the Fuller's ESB clone looks very tempting...........

They are not the cheapest of kits, but you get lots of ingredients, they are easy to use and................currently on special offer. :thumb: