GhostShip
Junior Member
Kit started 26th May 2024.
Added 1kg Dark Rock Pale Ale Beer Kit Enhancer, Pure Brew, and then made up to 23L with Tesco Ashbeck mineral water.
Fermented in brew fridge at 20°C.
Kit hops (Mosaic and El Dorado) added on 7th June.
Bottled on 10th June, with one sugar stick per 500ml bottle and put into brew fridge at 20°C.
Moved out to shed on 24th June.
First pint - Saturday 13th July.
I've become a huge fan of the Dark Rock Session Series kits and this one sounded right up my street. By coincidence, the Partridge Brothers reviewed it last week, just before I sampled my first pint (they gave it 10/10).
Having had the odd hint of 'home brew twang', which I'm sure is down to oxidation, I decided to change my brewing process a bit for this one. I have always transferred from the FV to a barrel (sometimes batch priming, but often not) mainly as a way of filtering the beer through a muslin bag. However careful I am, it stands to reason that the beer will come into contact with oxygen during this process and in my mind, it's that that leads to the twang.
So I bought a new FV (mine was a few years old anyway), with a fitted tap, with a view to keeping the beer in the FV all the while and only exposing it to the air when I add the hops (only takes a few seconds) or take a hydrometer reading (which I rarely do these days - I know when it's fermented out and I've not had any bottle bombs yet!). My little bottler fits on the tap and I can go direct to bottle, having left the FV out on a kitchen surface overnight to let everything settle.
I'll need to do a few brews like this to establish whether or not the twang is a thing of the past, but the first signs are positive.
The beer is a lovely golden colour, perfectly clear, with no sign of any debris (apart from the usual yeast at the bottom of the bottle). No smell of twang whatsoever on the nose, so to the first taste... I'm drinking this young as I normally wait a month from moving out to the shed to tasting, but impatience got the better of me, so there's every chance this will get better, but it is glorious. Absolutely no twang, just a really well balanced beer with a nice hop punch, stone fruit flavours and a subtle bitter finish. I'd had it in the fridge for 2 days and it's just a perfect summer pint (even if it is raining) with an ABV of around 4.5%. The acid test for me is always 'What would I think if I was served this in a pub', and the answer is simple - I'd be delighted with it and probably drink it all night. I do think Dark Rock's Enhancer plays its part too - I've used it as the fermenter with other kits and the results always seem to be very good.
If you enjoy a hoppy pale ale, then I'd highly recommend this. It's so clean and easy to drink, with a perfect balance of hops, fruit and bitterness. 10/10 from me and although I've done a few now, I'll definitely continue to explore the Session Series range of kits.
Added 1kg Dark Rock Pale Ale Beer Kit Enhancer, Pure Brew, and then made up to 23L with Tesco Ashbeck mineral water.
Fermented in brew fridge at 20°C.
Kit hops (Mosaic and El Dorado) added on 7th June.
Bottled on 10th June, with one sugar stick per 500ml bottle and put into brew fridge at 20°C.
Moved out to shed on 24th June.
First pint - Saturday 13th July.
I've become a huge fan of the Dark Rock Session Series kits and this one sounded right up my street. By coincidence, the Partridge Brothers reviewed it last week, just before I sampled my first pint (they gave it 10/10).
Having had the odd hint of 'home brew twang', which I'm sure is down to oxidation, I decided to change my brewing process a bit for this one. I have always transferred from the FV to a barrel (sometimes batch priming, but often not) mainly as a way of filtering the beer through a muslin bag. However careful I am, it stands to reason that the beer will come into contact with oxygen during this process and in my mind, it's that that leads to the twang.
So I bought a new FV (mine was a few years old anyway), with a fitted tap, with a view to keeping the beer in the FV all the while and only exposing it to the air when I add the hops (only takes a few seconds) or take a hydrometer reading (which I rarely do these days - I know when it's fermented out and I've not had any bottle bombs yet!). My little bottler fits on the tap and I can go direct to bottle, having left the FV out on a kitchen surface overnight to let everything settle.
I'll need to do a few brews like this to establish whether or not the twang is a thing of the past, but the first signs are positive.
The beer is a lovely golden colour, perfectly clear, with no sign of any debris (apart from the usual yeast at the bottom of the bottle). No smell of twang whatsoever on the nose, so to the first taste... I'm drinking this young as I normally wait a month from moving out to the shed to tasting, but impatience got the better of me, so there's every chance this will get better, but it is glorious. Absolutely no twang, just a really well balanced beer with a nice hop punch, stone fruit flavours and a subtle bitter finish. I'd had it in the fridge for 2 days and it's just a perfect summer pint (even if it is raining) with an ABV of around 4.5%. The acid test for me is always 'What would I think if I was served this in a pub', and the answer is simple - I'd be delighted with it and probably drink it all night. I do think Dark Rock's Enhancer plays its part too - I've used it as the fermenter with other kits and the results always seem to be very good.
If you enjoy a hoppy pale ale, then I'd highly recommend this. It's so clean and easy to drink, with a perfect balance of hops, fruit and bitterness. 10/10 from me and although I've done a few now, I'll definitely continue to explore the Session Series range of kits.
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Riwaka 
