Brewer's Best beer ingredient kit

I picked up a kit from these guys and was wondering what others thought about their products. This one is Robust Porter.

I brewed 2 batches with their kits then tinkered with them to make it my own. But I have had no issues with them. the double IPA came out awesome. My other batch is still fermenting.

My experience with them was I consistantly made a drinkable solid beer. Never made anything that blew me away, but never had a brew I didn't enjoy when I used their kits.

dont follow the directions it comes with,, at least not everything it tell you to do. hop boil times can be adjusted, also it says to leave in primary for a week. i guess it all depends on the beer but.. i read here that 3-4 in primary weeks better (debated to death) but thats what i do.. then no secondary.. except for lagers or high gravity beers) I also have noticed a slightly better, tasty difference in my second batch, i read not to "boil" the LME. to me when i just boil, maybe, a 1/3 of my LME with my steeped grains.. the beer seems to taste "cleaner" .. again, just suggestions, from knowledge i got here at this site.

I've brewed that kit. I was disappointed with it when I tasted my first bottle. It was thin and watery, not what I expected with a name with robust in it. I had other beers to drink so I let it set in the box, every now and then opening a bottle and being disappointed....until one day I tried a bottle and it really was robust. A really good porter. It took about 2 months in the bottle to mature and from then on I really enjoyed it.

I finished one of their Imperial nut brown ale kits 3 weeks ago. Popped one open just now.. Hmmm. A little cloudy, but not bad. Very, very dark with lots of chocolate, malt and a solid hop kick. The head is almost as rich as a Guiness stout. Will see what it's like after a few more weeks/months in the cellar.

bosco

I've had good luck with them, I did the California imperial ale, and black India ale, both were pretty good. I also brewed the imperial blonde and Oktoberfest, those turned out horribly, but both times attributed to my inexperience and/or brewing mishaps.

boscobeans said:

I finished one of their Imperial nut brown ale kits 3 weeks ago. Popped one open just now.. Hmmm. A little cloudy, but not bad. Very, very dark with lots of chocolate, malt and a solid hop kick. The head is almost as rich as a Guiness stout. Will see what it's like after a few more weeks/months in the cellar.

bosco

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My first attempt was a BB Irish Stout and not being in the know concerning home brewing I followed the recipe to the letter except the priming sugar. I just stirred it in (a couple half and halves) and those things can happen I guess.
The Irish Stout was a little more Hoppy than I expected. I liked it. A lot!
Good after bottled for ten days, better after two weeks and amazing after 21 days. I enjoyed it VERY cold. Dark dark brown, creamy head, nice lace. Aroma is exceptional. Tasted like Muphy's Stout 12 oz and Dog Fish Head 60 4oz mixed.
I,ll buy the kit again so I can pay better attention to the exact ingredients so I can try to duplicate it. I only got 4 1/2 gallons and OG was 1.053 It finished at about 4.7 % alcohol. Might want to make it shy of five gallons to intensify ?
Just a thought. I do recommend the Irish Stout for an easy first brew for the Dark Beer lover. It has been very nice as a black and tan as well.
Cheers

My LHBS mostly carries Brewer's Best kits, so that's all I've used so far. My first two batches (I'm making 2.5 gallon batches) were the milk stout, then I made two matches of witbeer. I've got the American amber carbing right now.

They've all been great beers. The kits were easy enough not to scare me away from homebrewing, though, once I make the second batch of amber, I plan to try working form a recipe next.

I just picked up their IPA kit for my first batch this weekend. Looking forward to it. I haven't read through their instructions yet, but hoping it's clear what to follow and what not to follow (having heard here "don't follow their instructions to a T").

I did exactly one kit brew when I started and it was a Brewers Best kit. The beer turned out good. It was good introduction into brewing.

The instructions are pretty detailed and provide a nice checklist for each step as you brew. Once you get to the fermentation step, don't follow their instructions, but instead just leave the brew in the primary for 3 weeks and then bottle. No need to rack to secondary after 5-7 days.

No complaints with the directions? Just drank too much to follow the priming directions with very desirable results.
The boil did take a some volume away but that may have contributed to the complexity and concentration. Not concentrated like the dog fish head 90 but I like that cut with lighter, dryer commercial beer anyway. Enjoy and take the guidance of the author of the brew they sell a lot of that and if it's not perfect, drink the evidence and learn from it.
No worries!
Cheers!
Sevenal

Hi all. Brand new here. Trying to learn. My son asked me if I would home brew with him, so here I am. We bought the Brewers Best Irish Stout kit as well, as we love dark beer and are having a ball doing this.

We started the batch on 4/29 and had bubbles in the airlock after 24 hrs at a rate of about 1-2 per second. Today (may 2) it has slowed considerably, one every five secs or so. Plan to leave it there till 48 hrs after seeing no bubbles then rack it to a carboy for a couple weeks. A sniff around the airlock release holes smells beer-ish and delish.

I do have a question... If for some reason I wanted to take a hydrometer reading mid-way thru this first stage, how much am I risking by opening the bucket lid and exposing the batch to oxygen ? I understand the contamination risks, just wondering about the o2 risk. Is it ok to take a reading if I thought something was wrong and then let it continue ? Again, I think all is good right now, just a rhetorical question.

Thanks all !

Doug

There's very little risk of oxygenating your beer by taking a sample. Don't return the sample to the bucket, drink it or dump it. If you open your bucket with some care the blanket of CO2 that formed during the fermentation will be intact and protect your beer.

Do you have a good reason to rack this to your carboy? Many of us are just leaving our beer in the primary for the duration. This eliminates any risk of contamination or oxygenation due to the racking and our beers turn out very good doing it this way.

I have brewed a Brewers best irish stout,robust porter and Milk stout

I can honestly say that they are easy and fun. I brewed the irish stout first and even though i didnt give it enough time and had a few errors it still came out beer and tasted pretty great

I really enhanced the robust porter kit by adding vanilla beans to secondary (2 weeks in primary 2 weeks racked onto vanilla beans in secondary then bottled for 3 weeks at 70f) it was AMAZING so I personally highly recommend these beer kits as far as base of ingredients to maybe make as is,enhance with other things and of coarse ferment for much longer then suggested by the instructions

The milk stout is still fermenting but I honestly believe that if all the beer making rules are followed (patience sanitation and watching your OG and FG reading) that any of these kits will by default make great tasting beer if left alone for long enough. I really do love these kits. its more than just mixing up a can of syrup with water and sugar and not as much work as all grain. thats my .12 cents
Cheers!