Tips or Advice for BB Irish Stout

Hello, I'm making my second batch, (the first is in secondary)...It's the Brewers Best Irish Stout. Just wondering if anybody has any advice or tips beyond the instructions that come with it....Here's what the instructions say:

!. Sanitize
2. Steep grains in 2.5 gallons water for 20 minutes
3. Boil and add LME, DME, Maltodextrin
4. Add bittering hops.
5. Boil 55 min
6. Cool
7. Add water to equal 5 gallons
8. Pitch Yeast (I'll rehydrate first)
9. Put in bucket and seal (I'll use a blowoff tube

Should I pre-boil 3 gallons and put in the bucket prior to everything else or should I wait till I add the wort adn then add water to it.

Also should I strain the wort or just dump everything in there?

I plan on leaving this one in primary for 4 weeks and then bottling...

Thanks!

You can boil the top off water first if you want, although if your tap water tastes okay, you can just put it in. What I would do is let your wort cool as fast as possible, to about 75-80f, after the boil. Then whirlpool it (stir it real fast) and let it settle for 15-30 minutes. Take your racking cane and siphon from just the edges as all of the hops and protien have settled into a cone in the middle of the pot. If you get some of the stuff in it isn't a big deal because it will settle out in the end. Then add your water (tap or pre boiled) until you get to about 4.5 gallons. Use your sanitized hydrometer to see how close you are to your starting gravity. If you hit it, you can stop adding water. If you are more concerned with the volume of beer, go ahead and top off to 5 gallons. If you are still have a high gravity, continue adding water until you get to where you want your gravity. Aerate well before pitching your yeast because all of the O2 has been boiled out and the yeast need this to get going. Don't add any O2 after fermentation has begun. You should be good.

Also with steeping grains, because they are just steeping graing (from what I gather), you can just put these in your water as it's heating up and take them out when the water gets to 170F. When I first began brewing I was so concerned with the temp and time, when I really didn't need to worry about it that much. Have fun.

When I was doing stovetop brewing I always dumped through a (sanitized) strainer into my bucket. Got rid of all the hop trub and it also seemed to help aerate it a little better.

Edit: I'd say don't bother boiling the top-up water. For one, yeast needs oxygen to reproduce. If you boil the water it drives off all the oxygen. Two, if there is tons of bacteria in your tap water, you have worse issues than infected beer to worry about. Three, I never did it and I have never had an infected batch

Docjowles said:

When I was doing stovetop brewing I always dumped through a (sanitized) strainer into my bucket. Got rid of all the hop trub and it also seemed to help aerate it a little better.

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I've been doing that a lot lately. After racking the wort, I'll put the rest through a strainer, although I find that it takes a little bit of work to get all of the wort through the hop and protien sludge.

Sounds good, I'm about to get started, thanks for the help

Funny, my situation was pretty much identical on Saturday--second batch ever, brewing using the BB irish stout kit. I brewed it with a couple of friends over the weekend and airlock activity is telling me something good's going on in that fermenter despite a few mistakes.

I've read a few articles that gave some interesting dry stout-specific advice. Some of it I followed, such as a recommendation to use a starter to get the beer nice and dry. Some of it I didn't dare follow, like adding a bit of boiled, cooled, sour beer to the mix.

This being my second batch, and never having tasted homebrew before, I don't really know what to expect with regard to quality and flavor, so I'm going by the recipe to keep additional factors to a minimum. When racking my first batch to secondary I was pleased to find that my amber ale tastes great after only a week in the fermenter. Good luck with the stout and let me know if you find any more useful tips!

haha.funny my second brew also and its the same recipe.i followed the instructions that brewers best supplied in my first batch(pale ale)and it turned out fine.both batches fermented like crazy for a day and calmed down but after talking with some hemebrew friends it is mostly because of our az warm weather.i do my brewing in the kitchen and i maintain 78 degrees in the house.i tend to overthink things sometimes so i just relax and follow the steps supplied.seems to work!

i just did a BB irish stout a couple months ago, i added a pint of my homemade maple syrup at 15 minutes left in the boil, then again when i racked to secondary. i did notice the yeast that came with this kit hung up around 1.025 stayed there for days, i pitched a package of S-04 and it finished at 1.014. this turned out to be one of the best stouts i have ever had.

I brewed that kit a while ago and have read a number of posts from others who did too. Mine finished out at 1.020 and lots of others had the same experience. All have turned out well as far as I know.

Bottom line, don't worry if your batch finishes higher than 1.014, or even up to 1.020. It's a darn tasty beer.