Brewing with a Mangrove Jack's Stout Kit Review

Friday, July 20, 2018
mangrove jacks irish stout review
After my relatively successful effort with the Mangrove Jack's Dutch Lager kit (review), I thought I'd have a crack at their Irish Stout.

Brewed in the normal good manner of proper sanitization, careful cleanliness and a half-assed attempt to keep the brew warm during these winter months by wrapping it in several sheets, I am expecting a stock standard stout but I'm quite keen to compare it to Black Rock's Miner's Stout as I've brewed a fair few of those in the past year and found them to be excellent brews.

I'm keen to see how creamy the kit is.

I prepared the kit and added a beer enhancer that was specifically tailored to a stout and then left the unit in my shed outside to ferment.

During fermentation in the shed, we had our first winter frost. Not ideal for an ale but whatever.

I waited 10 days before conditioning at which point I batched primed with 70 mls of sugar that I dissolved in boiling water.

Honestly, batch priming makes it so easy to get a consistent brew across the batch and reduce the chances over an over-sugared bottle doing a gusher. I don't know why I was so reluctant to do so!

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So it's now been over a week since I bottled condition, so I'm going to have a sneaky sample. I left the beer in the fridge overnight so the ale was nice and cold. It felt like it had a good body and it tasted like an ale but one that clearly needed to condition a fair bit longer.

So we wait.

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Week 2. A wee sample after a nice chicken korma proved to be an odd, but a rewarding combination. The stout has settled somewhat.

Detected a hint of coffee which I expect will be gone in a week or two.

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Week  3. This beer has turned out OK, I've made enough beers to know that if I give this batch another month to the condition it will be fine but nothing to write home about. I suspect I over sugared the batch as the beer gets quite the head when being poured. I'd say 50 to 60 grams probably suits.

The slight coffee notes remain.

Given this was actually the cheapest beer kit I've ever bought, the resulting beer is pretty fair. I do however prefer the Black Rock Miner's Stout over this.

Can I cold crash outside, in the cold, in winter?

Wednesday, July 4, 2018
cold crashing beer outside

Cold crashing.

It's a great way to make your beer to stand to attention and free itself of the particles that make your beer cloudy.

Many brewers cold crash in a fridge for a day or three.

But what if you have no beer fridge but only the cold?

Can you cold crash outside, overnight if it's cold?


Well, yes you can but your results may vary.

Generally speaking, cold crashing can take up to 24 - 48 hours to be effective to precipitate out the unwanted proteins so one night in the cold of winter might only get you 12 hours (say 7 pm - 7am) but that's assuming New Zealand conditions.

If you're in America, Canada or the Baltic states or the like, it's damn cold with all that snow so yes, you can cold crash outside for a couple of days and the job will be done but as we said, results may vary.

You may want to crash at night and then place the fermenter somewhere out of the sunlight during the day and then have another crack the second night. Be careful to not disturb the trub too much as you are trying to clear the beer, not stir everything up.

Can it be too cold to crash outside?


The colder the better and it will help precipitate out more yeast, however, you don't want to freeze your beer as that's kind of a disastrous result. So, if you are confident the overnight temperature won't go below freezing point (32F or 0C),  you should be OK. 

The amount of alcohol in your beer will play a factor as well - higher strength ABV beers can resist colder temps a little more but it's not necessary for cold crashing.

Can I just leave my beer in the shed for a week?


You sure can. Brewing is a timing game, so giving your beer an extra week in a cold shed will help lager it and let the yeast do its job. 

Remember you can also add finings shortly before bottling to help clear your beer.

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