Munton's Oaked Ale Kit Review

[JamesG]

Couldn't find a thread anywhere for this, so here goes.
After a few hoppy kits I fancied a few more traditional ale, and the sound of the Oaked Ale was tempting in spite of a lack of reviews and a fairly hefty price tag.
The kit comes with 2 tins of fermentables, a sachet of American Ale Yeast (but only 6g!), and a 10g sachet of lightly toasted oak chips. I weighed the tins, net weight of each was 1.84 kg, so nearly 3.7 kg.
I mixed it yesterday, 14/2, pretty much in line with instructions which are fairly standard. I did add more yeast though to the yeast provided (Wilko's gervin yeast), and rehydrated it. When pitched the yeast started working within 2 hours. You add the oak chips after pitching the yeast and stir. OG was 1050. Instructions say to get it below 1014, so its pretty much on course for 5%.
The small portion of yeast I was expecting, another minor gripe is that when I warmed the tins the paper round the tin started to break up in the water which isn't helpful.
Instructions say to prime with spray malt, but the beer is a nice dark colour at the moment so I will probably stick with brewers' sugar.
My plan is to leave in the fermenter for 2 weeks and then check gravity.
Will update as I progress.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Couldn't find a thread anywhere for this, so here goes.
After a few hoppy kits I fancied a few more traditional ale, and the sound of the Oaked Ale was tempting in spite of a lack of reviews and a fairly hefty price tag.
The kit comes with 2 tins of fermentables, a sachet of American Ale Yeast (but only 6g!), and a 10g sachet of lightly toasted oak chips. I weighed the tins, net weight of each was 1.84 kg, so nearly 3.7 kg.
I mixed it yesterday, 14/2, pretty much in line with instructions which are fairly standard. I did add more yeast though to the yeast provided (Wilko's gervin yeast), and rehydrated it. When pitched the yeast started working within 2 hours. You add the oak chips after pitching the yeast and stir. OG was 1050. Instructions say to get it below 1014, so its pretty much on course for 5%.
The small portion of yeast I was expecting, another minor gripe is that when I warmed the tins the paper round the tin started to break up in the water which isn't helpful.
Instructions say to prime with spray malt, but the beer is a nice dark colour at the moment so I will probably stick with brewers' sugar.
My plan is to leave in the fermenter for 2 weeks and then check gravity.
Will update as I progress.

preparing to bottle this kit today!

just looking for the priming instructions :-)

 

[dad_of_jon]

og 1055
fg 1015 after 14 days at 18-22deg. used mango jacks west coast yeast.

tastes really nice out of the trial jar

that should be ok plus 130g of sugar. (6g per liter as i want to drink it colder than norm.)

off to purge the bottling bucket with co2 :-D

 

[JamesG]

I kegged this on 25th February, 2 weeks warm conditioning and then nearly 2 weeks in the garage. It is already very good and I am really pleased with it.
The beer is very dark, can't see through it at all yet so it looks like a porter, it has a good brown head which stays all the way to the end of the pint. The oak chips have given it a lovely biscuity taste, and the beer itself is very mellow. I am really looking forward to the next 39 pints!
In summary, I am really impressed, looking forward to it improving further and would do it again.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Well, I've had 2 bottles of this now.

Getting 1.5 fingers of creamy brown head that dissapates to 3-4 ml by the end of the glass. Lots of lacing on the glass. The colour is dark, like Guinness. The flavour is a cross between Guinness and Hobgoblin, with some vanilla ice cream notes. It's truly wonderful. I did brew it a little short and used a mango jacks yeast but it is worth returning to at some point.

Because it works out at 70p per 500ml vs hobgoblin at £1.17 in lidl's, I think i'll still buy HG because I have limited fermenting capacity and would prefer to use it to brew stuff that isn't easily available elsewhere.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Couldn't find a thread anywhere for this, so here goes.
.

Now in the kit A - Z review thread - http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=37183 :thumb:

 

[timbrew]

I'm getting through a Geordie winter warmer ale..... It's goooood! I Definitely recommend . Good amount of head from start to finish , bottled up and gets tastier by the day!

 

[allotment_fox]

Muntons Hand crafted Oaked Ale 2x3.6 kg cans
I found this brew kit seriously reduced to a tenner in the brew shop just before Christmas whist shopping for some spirt essences, just could not walk by it if it wasn't for the fact that I was walking back to the station I would have had a couple of more of them.
OK sell by date 7 Months ago. Made the two tin kit as instructions, Today 12/01/23 treated the water with half of a camden tablet, I found the extract very sticky and also very dark, added the kit yeast 6 gram along with a packet of S04 ale yeast, added Harris Pure Brew and 5 grams of oak chips of the 10g supplied tasted the wart a little bitter bunged it in the fermenter fridge set at 17c
with a starting gravity of 1050 so fingers crossed lets see how it turns out this kit is heading for bottling after about two weeks in the fermenter

 

[dad_of_jon]

good call to add other yeast as no way to tell how the kit was stored and if 7 months bbe the yeast may not be viable