Russian Imperial Stout Homebrew Beer Ingredient Kit

Easy brewing, great tasting beer
I transferred to a secondary fermenter after 6 or 7 days and let it go for another month or more. Beer tastes great – a little bitter with chocolate and coffee flavors.My bottles have more sediment than most of the beers I’ve brewed and does have a film at the top, but it doesn’t seem to have any negative affect on flavor.Great value… got just over 50 bottles from it so it’s about $1 per beer. ABV came out around 8-8.5%

Positive First Homebrew Experience
First homebrew experience and it’s really delicious. I found that my initial SG was higher than expected, despite adding as much water a was reasonable in my container. Used a blow tube instead of an airlock because I was forewarned by other comments that this brew would push pretty hard for at least a week. It didn’t disappoint as I could see the foam pushing through my fat tube for at least a week. After auto-syphoning into a second carboy when it slowed down, I switched to a cork with airlock and that let me see it still bubbling but at a reasonable rate. Before bottling after 6 total weeks, I transferred to the original clean/sanitized carboy to filter again and mix with the priming sugar solution already in it. My only complaint here is the box comes with 5 oz. of it as marked (is this a weight or a volume?) but wants you to add only 3.5 oz. They do tell you how to measure it, so I did my best here. It worked ok, but I don’t have as much fizz as I would have liked. Some bottles yes and some no. I was wondering if I should have added all 5 oz of priming sugar and directions just needed to be updated. I was afraid the bottles might have exploded wit that. Then I noticed someone recommended 3.75 oz of priming sugar was better. I assume that fixes the low fizz issue issue I had. I’m also excited to try the whiskey stout recipe someone posted for this brew. Thanks for all the comments as they have made me aware of minor tweaks that improved my chances of a delicious brew.I should also add that the final SG was also slightly high out of range but the change put me in 11% ABV range. It doesn’t taste 11% ABV, but I also don’t have a dark competitor to O’Doules, either. Guessing it’s really 7% and more dense than water because of other ingredients. Friends we shared with really liked it and kept filling up, so I believe they really did enjoy it.

Great kit
This kit came with yeast from Apex Cultures – San Diego strain. The instructions said it would ferment completely in 7 days at 68 degrees F. I held the temperature at 68, but my carboy pumped like a piston for 14 days! Final Gravity was 1.020, which fits the profile. It will not finish out at 8.5% ABV like the package says if you follow the instructions. Mine is about 7.4%. Fine for me.

Will NOT use Brewer’s Best kits again!
I only recently started home brewing and this is the 4th Brewer’s Best Kit I’ve made. Going forward, I will not use Brewer’s Best kits. I will either use Northern Brewer kits or buy the ingredients separately and use a recipe. The first kit I used was their Holiday Ale. It didn’t turn out great at all. I blamed myself since it was the first time I brewed something, but now that I’ve had a couple of their kits, I’m not so sure.The second kit I used was their Double IPA. My friends really seemed to like it, but it was not a Double IPA. It was extremely dark and malty, more like a hoppy Amber Lager. Again, it tasted fine, definitely drinkable, but not a Double IPA.The 3rd kit I got was a Russian Imperial Stout. This is when I realized that all of the Brewer’s Best directions, at least for their Easy beers, are exactly the same for each beer. The only difference is the ingredients and when to put them in. You may be thinking “so what?” Do a little research about yeast and you’ll see that it activates at certain temperatures. For instance, their directions always say to ferment in a “temperature stable area (approx 64-72 degrees). I had this beer in my basement, which is where I fermented my IPA. Since it was winter, the basement was around 65 degrees. The fermentation stopped after about a day, which is very wrong. I brought the beer upstairs where is was about 69, and it started to ferment again.The Dunkel is the 4th kit I’ve used, which I just brewed two days ago. It has yet to start fermenting. Again, the directions said the same as the last 3, 64-72 degrees. After doing some research and reviewing other Dunkel recipes, you’ll see that the yeast used in those activates around 50-52 degrees. I’m going to leave the beer for a little bit, but if I don’t see fermentation soon, I’m going to dump it because I don’t have the ability right now to ferment at 50 degrees. What a waste!The other problem I have with Brewer’s Best is the time frame for making the beer. All of these generic directions have you drinking beer in about 4-5 weeks. It recommends transferring the beer from the primary fermenter to the secondary right about fermentation is complete, about 5-7 days. I’ve gone to several local breweries and asked the brewers about this. They all think this is a mistake. With the Stout, for instance, the recommended at least 2-4 weeks in the primary, another 2 weeks or so in the secondary, then bottle and let it sit at least a month, and it should get better the longer it sits. I am following their instructions now with the Stout, taking my time. They said, if you want a beer now, go buy one. If you want to make one, don’t rush it.The 3rd issue I have is the yeast itself. Its a dry yeast. The generic instructions say ‘DO NOT REHYDRATE”. Now granted, you can use dry yeast, but all of the recipes I’ve researched and books that I’ve read use a liquid yeast or rehydrate the dry yeast. I will be using liquid yeast packets from now on until I learn how to cultivate my own.So look for yourself, you’ll see the directions are exactly the same. Its a good start, but do your research and don’t get discouraged if your beer isn’t turning out right. It might not be you.