Wilko Dark Velvet Stout

[Adamzworld]

I thought I'd give a stout a go, so I bought one of these kits today from Wilko's along with the 1kg Geordie Beer Enhancer pack.

I've not done a single kit brew before so I'm assuming I simply add all 1kg of the beer enhancer in place of sugar, is this right? I will then add around 85g of brewing sugar to the pressure barrel once it's ready for barrelling.

I notice that there are other posts on here about tweaking the kit by adding coffee, treacle, chocolate etc. I don't want to mess about too much as this is only my third brew, so am not that adventurous yet! Has anyone done the kit with just adding the beer enhancer and how did it turn out?

Thanks,



Adam

 

[RobWalker]

Yep on the sugar/BKE. :thumb:

You can find good reviews in the beer kit reviews section :

 

[MattN]

Great kit. Brewed it to 20 litres. I used normal sugar (1.2kg) and bottled it a couple of weeks ago. Tasted great, good head and absolutely no complaints.

Matt

 

[Adamzworld]

Thanks for the replies. I'll brew it short and see how it comes out.

Cheers!


Adam

 

[Dusty]

I done mine with 500g dme,a tin of golden syrup and 250g of muscavado sugar.Been in the bottle a month so tried a couple last night,not bad :drink: I've got another one in the fv I done that with 1kg of dark dme and 500g of muscavado sugar,will let you know how it turns out. :

 

[Adamzworld]

I finally got round to brewing this kit. I thought I'd stick with standard kit to start with and tweak it next time. I added 1kg of beer enhancer, left for just over a week and added around 85g of brewing sugar today when I tranferred from FV to pressure barrel. I have a bit of a head cold at the moment and don't possess an auto syphon, so had to suck it to get it started. I did attach a spare length of tube to one end (the end i was sucking) then removed it once it got going. Unfortunately i did have to repeat this process two or thee times to restart the syphon. I did soak the spare bit of tube in boiling water each time before use so I'm hoping I've got away with it!

I'm planning on hopefully drinking this over Christmas, so if I give it to the extendd family, then am I likely to make them all sick?

I'm hoping everyone will tell me that the alcohol will kill of any nasties in the barrel! Anyway next time def going to invest in an auto syphon as it would be far more hygienic!

 

[Adamzworld]

Having done a bit more reading up on this subject, it would appear that whilst it might give the beer an 'off taste' any bacteria present should be killed off and shouldn't therefore cause anyone to get sick from drinking it, unless of course they overdo it!

 

[ChrisHill29]

I bought two cans of this today. I read somewhere about using two tins with the same water and sugar as for one. Has anyone tryed this? Ive got some medium malt and some enhancer as well. Was also going to add a tin of black treacle too. Am I getting carried away? I do love a strong stout though.

 

[devexwarrior]

All the variations sound yummy. I'm getting back into brewing post christmas. My first kit down the range will be a Wherry. Once that goes into the barrel to condition before bottling I'm planning on putting a stout on to keep in the keg. I'll probably do one straight first time around but the golden syrup and muscovado sugar option sounds tempting

 

[Steve]

I bought two cans of this today. I read somewhere about using two tins with the same water and sugar as for one. Has anyone tryed this? Ive got some medium malt and some enhancer as well. Was also going to add a tin of black treacle too. Am I getting carried away? I do love a strong stout though.

It can be done and I believe it has been mentioned on the forum about using two coopers stout kits in one brew. Sounds like a nice brew to me but might need a few months to be at it's best and also use the yeast from both tins. My opinion on this kind of experimenting with brews is to try it. Best thing that can happen is you love it and want to repeat it in the future. Worst thing is it's not that nice made a bit worse by the brew working out more expensive. I've experimented a lot with my brews and now at brew 38 I've not had anything undrinkable.