Let's start with the box, it's very eye-catching and is packed with detailed information about the kit inside. I love the fact that it gives you a bitterness rating, hop variety additions and detailed tasting notes.
I paid £23.99 for this kit in my LHBS and was very pleased with what greeted me when I opened the box!
As this is a 3.5kg kit with an estimated strength of 5% ABV, it comes with 2 x 1.5kg pouches of hopped LME, 500g of dextrose, another 100g of dextrose for priming, 50g of hop pellets for dry hopping, 10g of 'dark bitter' ale yeast and a well made fine mesh drawstring bag that acts as a hop filter for the end of the syphon tube when racking.
The enclosed instructions are very clear and even have space to record details such as gravity readings, brew date and dry hopping dates.
This is the first time that I have brewed a kit that has the LME in pouches, but I think that they are actually easier to handle than tins. I stood the pouches in hot water for 30mins to help soften the extract and then just cut all of the way along the top of the pouch and emptied the contents into my FV. I then filled them up 2/3rds with boiling water, closed up the top of the pouches and left to dissolve and steam off the remainder of the LME.
After mixing and dissolving the LME and sugar in the FV, I topped up to 23L and got an OG of 1.044 @22C. The instructions say that the Pilgrims should finish at 1.011, so this will end up something like 4.5% after moderate priming
I think that I will leave to ferment for 10 days, then rack into a fresh FV, then add the hop pellets for dry hopping directly into the FV as instructed.
Let's hope it's as good as people are reviewing because for £23.99 it seems such VFM
MB
