Brewferm Xmas Ale Review.

[simon19791]

brewed this up today, using 6 litres of bottled water, pitched yeast and sat in fermenting fridge at 20.5oC.

Will leave for 2 weeks, bottle and leave till christmas 2016!

 

[Slid]

I am basically disappointed with this Xmas brew.

Despite 11 months of loving care, it is basically tinny and medicinal in taste.

No offence to the yeast that came with it, which has graced subsequent brews and blessed the general brewery with a tendency towards high attenuating beer.

If you like the taste of Tinny and Medicinal, you could spend a year waiting for this to come good. And good luck to you.

I feel rather annoyed that I used my swing top bottles on a grog that is fundamentally Vic Satis.

(Vic Satis being Latin for "barely sufficient" - only a little better than Nil Satis - which means "not enough" - as all fans of Everton FC will know.)

 

[yeastinfection]

i feel your pain :-(

 

[clym]

with regards to the Brewferm Christmas I have a question which is a little too late to ask!
The can makes 7 litres, not a lot, so I did two cans together.
I should have bottled yesterday but there was so much "gunk" in suspension that I decided to secondary ferment in the same vessel (I am using a Fermentasaurus)
Within 24 hours the difference is unbelievable. The collection bottle is full of yeast (I presume it is yeast?) and now I feel much happier bottling.
I put both sachets of yeast into the mix, would one have been enough?

 

[LeeH]

No you needed 2.

 

[Graz]

I've still got quite a bit of this bottled from last year. Be interesting to see how it's matured given another year in the bottle.

Also be warned when I made this it stopped fermenting around 1.022 and after some digging it seemed this might be normal behaviour for this kit. I bottled without any priming sugar and by Christmas it had carbonated but wasn't overly fizzy. My thread here: https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/brewferm-christmas.69557/

 

[Pavros]

Also be warned when I made this it stopped fermenting around 1.022 and after some digging it seemed this might be normal behaviour for this kit. I bottled without any priming sugar and by Christmas it had carbonated but wasn't overly fizzy. My thread here: https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/brewferm-christmas.69557/

I think that the instructions (and probably the yeast) have changed for this kit.
I brewed it 5 or 6 years ago and the instructions were to bottle when it reached 1.020 with no priming sugar. I checked the FG over 3 days and it didn't budge from 1.020. The beer was excellent after conditioning between 9 and 15 months.
I brewed another in December 17 and the instructions said to bottle at a much lower gravity (can't remember exactly but probably 1.010-1.012) and to use priming sugar. This was bottled on 31.12.17 and I have had 2 330ml bottles so far. It is not ready yet but doesn't seem to have as much depth of flavour as the earlier kit. So far I'm disappointed but will see what it's like at Christmas when it should be at it's peak.