Home Brew Company Olga's Oregon Stout AG kit

I won this kit in the Home Brew Company raffle on this forum, one of the conditions of entering being that the winners write a review for the forum. So here goes...
Firstly, I'm not new to AG, but so far have only done 5 BIABs before, so wouldn't consider myself an expert by any means. The instructions that came with the kit were pretty poor, so I thought I'd just stick to my normal BIAB routine as I've been happy with the results I've had so far.
Picture below shows you what you get when you open the box - a bag of mixed grains, three packets of hops labelled 60mins, 15mins and 0mins which I took to mean the timings from the end of the boil - that'd be a bit confusing for a newbie I think - a packet of yeast and a tablet of whirlfloc. Plus the `instructions'.

Next picture is my boiler at my `workstation'. I just put that in to wind up all those people who spend hours and hours sanitising their entire environment before they start brewing.:lol:

I usually put in about 4 gallons of water to heat up for the mash as the boiler is 30litre and you have to leave room for the grains. I did the same this time but forgot that as it's quite a strong brew there'd be a bigger volume of grains. Luckily by the time I'd added all the grains and stirred them in there was still about half an inch of clearance til the top of the boiler.


I leave the boiler set at 65 so the heater clicks on and off throughout the mash and I occasionally check that the temperature is more or less correct. I mash for 90mins. Then I haul the bag out of the boiler using a rope to hang it over it to drain. This was the only problem I had making the brew - it seemed that something in the grain was fine enough to totally clog the pores of the BIAB bag so that I not only had to lift out the bag of moist grains, but also about 3 gallons of wort that came with it. Lots of squeezing then to get the wort out of the bag.

When the bag was pretty much squeezed out I gave it a dunk sparge in a clean FV with 2 kettle-fulls of boiling water plus 1 of cold water. I worked the bag a bit then hauled it out and let it drain / squeezed it out over the boiler and added the sparge water to the boiler, setting this to bring the wort to the boil.

This leaves the boiler with about 5 gallons of wort - some will be lost by evaporation, so during the boil I occasionally replenish it with a kettle full of boiling water. Here's the initial boil:

Once the foaming stopped I added the first of the hops (labelled 60mins). I usually boil for 90 minutes so I did the same this time. Second hops went in with 15 minutes to go, then the whirlfloc tablet at 5 minutes, and at switch-off added the last bag of hops. There's a lot of sitting around waiting during the boil so it was time to pop open a bottle of something to keep me inspired - in this case some of the cider I made last autumn...

At the end of the boil, after adding the last packet of hops I let the boiler stand for 20 minutes or so to allow the hops to do their business, then drained the boiler into the FV. I don't chill the wort as I like the hot wort to finish off sanitising the FV!

Then it's on with the lid and carry it into the house before leaving it to cool naturally to pitching temperature when I added the yeast (Safale US-05) without rehydrating it, just sprinkling it onto the wort. Then carried the FV up to our airing cupboard to ferment. By next morning there was a good krausen so I guess all was well.
OG was 1060 which matched what the kit instructions say, so I guess my mashing technique can't be too bad.
Part of the clean-up crew. Got to do something with the grains...:lol:

I'll update this at bottling time, and again after conditioning.

Looks good, I was gonna take come pictures myself but in the mess I misplaced my phone! will do some for the second half of mine..

Mind you me squeezing the bag in my marigolds just wont look as manly as you bare handed

Nice one. I dont have a camera or phone with a camera on it so couldn't take any photos of my brew day.

You are indeed hardcore squeezing the bag bare handed.

Nice one Cwrw666 :thumb:

I've done this kit, a bit of time to mature and you will have a very very good stout. This is in the top three of the AG batches I have done, the longer you leave it the better so don't rush into it.
I found that the instructions contained everything I needed to know but nothing else I'd agree that they are a bit austere.

Atb. Aamcle

aamcle said:

I've done this kit, a bit of time to mature and you will have a very very good stout. This is in the top three of the AG batches I have done, the longer you leave it the better so don't rush into it.
I found that the instructions contained everything I needed to know but nothing else I'd agree that they are a bit austere.

Atb. Aamcle

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Well, I've kind of rushed into doing the kit with the excitement of winning in the raffle, then it arriving in the post. I have a PB of single hop East kent Goldings pale ale with about 3 1/2 gallons left in it, plus 80 bottles of Northern Brown ale to get through before I'll be starting on the stout, so it should be well conditioned by then!

Nice write up! I'm sure HBC will appreciate the feedback too - it all points to good kits but an improvement on the instructions might be beneficial.

I wish I had an outhouse. And a horse. I live in Coronation Street land.

Nice work, bud! I ditto the love of the outhouse and the gee gee to clean up your grain.

I'm itching to start mine but I'm at a wedding this Saturday and Wembley on Sunday (sorry Clibit!)

Do let me know how it turns out, and I really fancy a bottle of this as a swap!

Joeyriles said:

I'm itching to start mine but I'm at a wedding this Saturday and Wembley on Sunday (sorry Clibit!)

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10th time lucky, perhaps?! :wink:

My marital status or PNE making it out of a playoff final? Both are very dicey.

My money's on North End to win.


Not actual money obviously.

Current news on this one is that it's been stuck at about 1018 for a couple of weeks now. Temperature has been quite steady at about 20c so I don't see that as a problem. About a week ago I gave it a stir - no change - and a couple of days ago another stir and added 2oz of sugar. It took 24 hours but finally started gently frothing yesterday - in other non-stuck beers where I've added priming sugar I've had frothing immediately! So I'll see how it goes. If this fails to get the yeast properly roused I'll have to get some amylase in.

So in the end I did have to resort to amylase which I got off ebay for a couple of quid, and after a week SG was down to 1012 which is a bit more like it.
And today I'm bottling and PBing it - 8 bottles just to see what it tastes like bottled, and the rest (4 gallons) into a PB. I have a feeling this is a good move as this stuff is a bit on the strong side for me - I can well imagine drawing off a half pint rather than wanting a full bottle. The PB also works better with a 4 gal. charge as with 5 gallons much of the gas from priming is lost out of the valve whereas with 4 gallons it isn't so it'll hold pressure right down to the tap.
So of course I've had a half pint of it whilst bottling, like you do. First impressions are wow it's a bit strong, secondly tons of body and extremely bitter - I guess that's roast barley bitterness rather than hops though as it doesn't taste like hop bitterness. Even at this stage it tastes highly drinkable. It's vaguely reminiscent of St Peters Cream stout, but stronger, more body and much more flavour. Can't wait til it's properly conditioned!:

Actually just done a quick calculation and it appears to have an ABV of 6.2% which is more or less the same as St Peters Cream S.

So this is possibly the final update on this review - I know it's a bit early but the brew has been in the PB now for 8 days at room temperature, the PB is up to pressure and the tap dripping quite a bit so I've drained off the first sample (just to reduce the pressure a bit of course). As usual with my cheapo Youngs PB you get half an inch of beer in the bottom and the rest of the glass full of foam which slowly settles out. As best I can tell it's very clear, though of course with a stout that's hard to tell, and in the picture below the inside of the glass is covered with a fine layer of brown bubbles which doesn't help.
Taste - Body is very smooth and creamy. Overall taste is very bitter roast barley flavours plus strong alcohol flavour.
Head - Thick and creamy and which stayed right to the bottom of the glass.

Conclusions
So what do I think of this kit? Firstly, I'm very happy with the results and would highly recommend this kit to anyone who's really into stouts. If you're not really into stouts then choose a less strong one as this has really powerful flavour.
The only real problem I have with this kit is the brewing instructions which I found very poor, and I'm not a newbie AG brewer. I particularly found the labeling of the hops a bit confusing though I worked it out in the end.
Would I buy another one? - actually no, but on the basis of this I would buy another HBC AG kit. When I ordered this one I took the opportunity to get something I wouldn't normally brew, not seeing the point of getting a kit for something I already make myself, and I find this just too strong for my personal tastes.
I think most experienced AG brewers are already buying in bulk the materials they need for their normal brews. These kits offer the opportunity to try something different without having to buy in loads of different ingredients that you may never use again. Also, of course, if you've run out of basic ingredients just buy a kit from HBC to fill in the gap till you order the next bulk purchase.
They'd also be good for newbies, but for them the instructions need to be much better. I know there are plenty of instructions available online and in brewing books but let's face it, your first AG brew is a pretty nerve racking, so the clearer the instructions the better!

All in all, it was great winning this kit in the HBC raffle. So here's a big thank you to both HBC and to the guys on the forum who organised it - :

Good report and the pint looks great, its making me want a:drink:

Thanks for the feedback, very comprehensive. Not a session ale I guess!

ManseMasher said:

Thanks for the feedback, very comprehensive. Not a session ale I guess!

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Well for the guys on the forum who never brew anything short of 5 - 6 ABV it might well be, but for an old fart like me probably not. Had to say I had 2 half pints, so after settling that's probably only 2/3rds of a pint total, and I feel quite p****d.

I made this last year give it a bit of time to mature and its a truly excellent pint.

Aamcle

Yes it's very young for a strong ale with a lot of roast, will get better and better