WILKO STOUT TWEAK?

Hi All!

This is my first post as I only joined today HURRAH! Just coming up to a year since I lost my brewing cherry (Thanks tom caxton! oooer?) and the missus of course! (for buying it that is! now then!)

Just starting to get the lingo and the likes from abit of forum surfing and only really starting to figure the kit brewing out so here we go!

So far ive brewed 4 kits and currently on my 5th!

Started with tom caxton real ale which went ok until my barrel lost pressure which cost me 20 pints! bummer!

Second was a wherry which now looking back got stuck in fermentation (and being an amateur) read a tonne of stuff I had no concept of and ended up ballsing the lot up!

Determined I bought another caxton real ale which went excellently! bottled 15 which I massively over carbonated (mmmmm Andrews liver salts! my favourite!) and kegged the rest which was lovely and gone in a flash!

4th was a courage directors kit ..... Balls up ! don't ask.... case of brewing without due care and attention! (would have rather been drunk incharge of a fermenting vessel but no such luck!!)

Anyway ! I Digress.

I have built a Fermentation chamber due to in-consistent tempratures in my house and the genuinly **** and in-decisive British weather! (inkbird,heater tube, fan, fridge .etc)

5th I have successfully reached phase 2 (kegging) of a TC Best bitter with added 50/50 MedDME and Sugar and brewed short to 36pints. All going great so far and tasting even better!

Call me impatient but I got abit leggoed on saturday thanks to the old guiness and various other porters and stouts on a night out in burton-on-trent (Paddys day spirit and all that!) but typical hangover shenanigans took over sunday and I went shopping and ended up with a wilko velvet stout kit !

Nevertheless throughout the week Ive done some reading and some purchasing!

So this is what im thinking ??

Ingredients so far

Wilko Velvet stout , 500g muscavado, 454g black treackle, 500g extra dark DME, 25g Fuggles pellet.

Ideas?

Mabye a couple of shots of coffee ?? Before or after stage 1? Any suggestions?

Brewed to 36 pints ? more ? less ? want it to be relatively heavy!

Mabye not add all the treacle ?


I Enjoy the thrill of the brewing as much as the drinking (Do I ??)
So if it goes horribly wrong oh well its all good fun and the thrill of experimentation is worth it!
(Im sure Einstein never follwed the instructions!!)

So any ideas/advice much appreciated!

Cheers

George!

Hi!
Welcome to the forum!
I would hold back on the black treacle - it's very overpowering. Try 100g (or as close as you can get, measuring that sticky stuff ) or even miss it out altogether.
You don't need to get the dark DME - the ordinary will do as well.
36 pints should be fine - if you want more body you could add about 300g maltodextrin; this will also improve head retention.

Bigcol49 said:

Hi!
Welcome to the forum!
I would hold back on the black treacle - it's very overpowering. Try 100g (or as close as you can get, measuring that sticky stuff ) or even miss it out altogether.
You don't need to get the dark DME - the ordinary will do as well.
Check the instructions about brew length - Coopers stouts are only 19 litre kits, if I remember correctly.

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+1 on not overdoing the black treacle, and if you use dark muscavado you can overdo that too.
Coopers kits are 1.7kg not 1.5kg like the Wilko kits. I brew Coopers stouts but always brew short to 19 litres, although like all Coopers one cans they are intended to be brewed to 23 litres.
My suggestion for this kit:-
Kit can, 500g dark DME, 500g Golden Syrup, 100g dark Muscavado sugar, 4 shots strong coffee (not instant), brewed to 18 litres which will give a beer about 4.5% ABV.
Dark DME will give a slight extra roasty taste to the beer but if you can't get it easily use 'standard' instead

What terrym said, except I would always use the Dark DME, as I like the taste it gives. However, it would still taste good with any.

I would go with the above but I did use a full tin of treacle in mine, although it was overpowering at first, I am glad I did as now I have a very, very, nice dark thick coloured stout, which is lip smackingly nice.

My 5th ever brew was a coopers Irish stout, I also thought it would be great to add a tin of black treacle, coffee, 500g dme and some cinnamon sticks. It was rank, even after 10 months in the bottle I ended up chucking it. Just stick to the dme and brew it short to 19L I'm sure you will end up with a great beer. Thats my advice anyway, good luck

Just another thought. I tried a Shepheard Neame Double Chocolate Stout over Xmas, and was quite impressed. So I now have some Chocolate Malt in my store waiting to be used in my next Coopers Stout as a steeping grain. I reckon 200g should be about right. Anyone else tried this?

Hi!
I did buy chocolate nibs to make a cocoa essence for a chocolate stout, but gave up when I tried a commercial chocolate stout and didn't like it.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that chocolate malt didn't impart a strong chocolate flavour, but I've no experience of using it for that purpose.

Thanks all! You lot don't mess about.
Yes I must admit I've read abit about dark treacle being overpowering! Think I'll go with the majority and only add a spot of treacle!
Cut the mucavado in half and bung a tin of golden syrup in and brew short to 19l. Just need to invest/borrow some decent coffee now!
Mmm exciting stuff! Cheers fellas
Will keep you posted on how I get on!

I have used Chocolate Malt in a couple of brews in smaller quantities but settled on 200g for my stout loosely based on the Graham Wheeler Stout and Porter recipes

Specialbrew said:

Just need to invest/borrow some decent coffee now!

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Stronger the better in my view. We drink Italian roast at home , and some of the other stuff I've tried hardly tastes of coffee unless you double up the quantity.

Nice one! Will get the missus to pick me some up when she's shopping so I can percolate the bejeesus out of it

Did a Wilko stout way back with added black treacle,around a quarter tin along with some dark brown sugar plus a hop tea made with willamette hops and brewed short. Came out quite well.
Watch the black treacle amounts,don't go bonkers with it.

could always add a bit of lactose, make it a milk stout?

how much i do k=not know. im trying to figure it out myself at the moment.

put 200g into the peanut butter chocolate stout im making atm but not tasted yet.
put 100g into a ridiculous mild that i made a month back (came out at 6.6%) and a trail bottle just after carbonation tasted awful and sickly sweet.

Oh and nearly forgot !

As for yeast when adding extra fermentables would anyone suggest using the kit yeast or getting something like wilko gervin ale yeast?
Also am I better to rehydrate it before I add it? (this goes for all brews)

im sure others will disagree, but i never re hydrate now.
im still fairly new with only about 10 brews under my belt and was rehydrating from the start, things have got better now im keeping it a bit more simple and not getting ahead of myself... too many late night drives to wilko to buy a pack of yeast after realising i pitched it far too hot

Specialbrew said:

would anyone suggest using the kit yeast or getting something like wilko gervin ale yeast?
Also am I better to rehydrate it before I add it? (this goes for all brews)

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Hi!
Generally, I ditch the kit yeast; Wiko's Gervin is my yeast of choice for ales and stouts.
Rehydration gets the brew off to a quicker start; I don't always rehydrate and get good results both ways.

I no longer do kits but re hydrate my yeasts and find a much quicker start up,so easy as well.

I rarely substiute kit yeasts unless there is good reason. So if the OG is not above about 1.045 the kit yeast should be fine in my view. However the belt and braces approach is to use a another yeast (say Wilko Ale) and keep the Wilko kit yeast to double up on a future brew.

I happen to have one kit yeast spare so I will just double it up anyway ! May rehydrate as not tried it before and see if I can tell the difference! Thanks again!