If I want to brew something that I don’t normally brew, I often use an all grain kit. This doesn’t mean that the ingredients are canned! It is just the same as all grain brewing (in fact it is!), but means that someone else has weighed out all the ingredients. If you don’t like it, you aren’t left with lots of left over ingredients. If you do like it, you can source all the ingredients yourself next time. I find it a really useful way of experimenting!
This is the Dark Rock Brewing Guinness Tribute all grain recipe kit. I have used their kits before and have had great results with their Bavarian Wheat Beer.
The instructions were easy to follow and it had everything in the box that I needed. And some that I didn’t! I didn’t use the finings as I think that cold crashing before bottling produces better results. This kit was brewed in a Grainfather with a hop spider in the usual way. My numbers were a little bit light – SG was 1042 (rather than 1045) and my FG was 1014 (rather than 1011). This produced an overall ABV of around 3.7%. No great drama! Although a bit surprising since I used a 90min mash rather than a 60 min mash in the instructions.
Fermentation was in a GF conical. I did let the fermentation free rise to 23C which in hindsight I should have held a bit lower. According the packaging S04 yeast ideally wants to be 15-20C. I am used to using US05 that handles the slightly higher temperatures better. It took 7 days for the gravity to level out at 1014. At the end of the fermentation, it was cold crash to around 2C for 48 hours.
This batch was bottled. 180g of brewers sugar added to the racking bucket before bottling. 42 500ml bottles in all. One week in the warm and then down to the cellar. After 2 weeks, it was flat. Oops! But after 7 weeks, it was perfectly carbonated. Phew!
It looks great. I had a slight dusting of sediment in the bottom of the bottles. It tastes great – nice toasted barley flavour that is slightly peaty!
Definitely one to brew again!
