Hello there - on 24/01/14 I did kit plus a biab mini mash.
Mash ingredients:
500g pale 2 row
250g medium crystal
125g roasted barley
125g chocolate
Mashed in 3.1 lts of water at approx 60 degrees for 60 mins; I kept the stock pot in a warmed oven to help retain heat, checking every so often.
Heated another 3.1. lts of water to sparge my grain bag in once I'd let it drain; heated to 65 degrees. I dumped the bag into the pot left it for ten minutes and then lifted it out and drained it. After that I left bag in a colander to collect the final run off (which was black, oily, sweet and delicious).
I combined the liquid from the original mash, the sparge and the final run off and brought to the boil, adding 25g of bramling cross for 20 mins.
In the meantime in a fermenting bin, I mixed 1kg of dry light malt extract with 3 lts of cold water. Once that was thoroughly combined, I added the 1.5kg tin of Young's Harvest Stout extract.
The boiled, hopped wort (approximately 5lts) was then added to the fermenter through a strainer (it smelt great). The whole lot was topped up to 17lts with cold water. I sealed the fermenter and left to cool to pitching temp.
When the temp was down to around 20 degrees I pitched the Young's kit yeast plus Safeale English Ale S-04. I don't have a hydrometer (I know...) so I left to ferment for two weeks. After one week I dry hopped with 25g of bramling cross. After two weeks racked to secondary on some blackberries and sloes left over from festive spirit making.
Prior to going into the secondary it tasted pretty good; lots of bitter roast malt flavour but with some sweetness in the background. There was also already some berry flavours; whether from the kit or the hops I don't know, but they were definitely there.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice