Advice for the second batch? American IPA from a Morgan's kit?

[alwayssummer]

Hello home brewers,

I've only just bottled my first batch, but to help me survive the waiting period during bottle conditioning I thought I would begin a second batch.

For batch #1 I made Morgan's Frontier IPA, and only got so-so attenuation (OG 1039, FG 1011), so I guess it will be a 3.5% ABV beer, which is not quite the ABV range I want out of an IPA. On the other hand, prior to bottling, we found the taste to be quite acceptable so I'm not discouraged by the imperfect results.

My goal (ideally) is to get closer to what I would order at a bar if I were back in the USA, which would be a floral, grapefruity, crisp, high-test IPA.

Right now the LHBS here in Singapore stocks Morgan's beer kits. I'm wondering if I can take a beer kit and do some mods to produce something that's a hair closer to 6% ABV and hoppier. Could I just add more brewing sugar to the mix and dry hop and get acceptable results?

Any American IPA enthusiasts here who can help me in the right direction?

 

[TheBigD]

why not use Ianh's spread sheet, and add DME or LME or even dex it wont hurt your brew, until you get the required ABV.

https://aussiehomebrewer.com/threads/kit-and-extract-beer-spreadsheet.29655/

If you really want to bump up flavour and aroma do a mini boil with a 1/2 hour addition and 15min addition with a citrusy style hop and then do a dry hop on day 4. Using Ianh's spread sheet it will tell you what IBUs you'll end up with.

Or if you want to keep it simple just add an extra kilo of dex/malt do a 15min hop tea in a coffee plunger and a dry hop on day 4 should get you close

 

[alwayssummer]

why not use Ianh's spread sheet, and add DME or LME or even dex it wont hurt your brew, until you get the required ABV.

https://aussiehomebrewer.com/threads/kit-and-extract-beer-spreadsheet.29655/

If you really want to bump up flavour and aroma do a mini boil with a 1/2 hour addition and 15min addition with a citrusy style hop and then do a dry hop on day 4. Using Ianh's spread sheet it will tell you what IBUs you'll end up with.

Or if you want to keep it simple just add an extra kilo of dex/malt do a 15min hop tea in a coffee plunger and a dry hop on day 4 should get you close

Thanks for the reply. I had a look at the spreadsheet and it was super helpful in giving me a basic idea of what I might want to mix and how it might react relative to my goal style. Unfortunately, I could not get my 'final recipe' into the spreadsheet because it doesn't seem to have the ingretients I planned to use. (I'm not trying to complain about the sheet--I think it's awesome that he took the time to build it out--I'm just quite new to this and have a hard time understanding a few things.)

• Does not seem to have the Morgan's can I wanted to use: Morgan's Frontier IPA (or I cannot find it-pebkac).
• The beer kit came with a bag of sugar called Morgan's Body Blend, which I also can't find in the spreadsheet. That's not a huge problem since since the LHBS does not sell body blend.
• I think from reading other threads that body blend is roughly 2/3 dextrose, 1/3 light DME maltodextrin (please correct me here), but again in the spreadsheet, I'm not sure where to put the dextrose

OK, since I wanted to brew over the weekend I chatted with the guy at LHBS about what I wanted and walked out with the following:

1. 1 can Morgan's Frontier IPA
2. 1 kg dried dextrose
3. 0.5 kb light DME
4. 20g Amarillo hops (for dry hopping)
5. Campden tablets for chloramine removal from my tap water (mostly because I feel guilty about the amount of plastic waste produced if I buy bottled water at the store--in Sing they don't seem to sell anything larger than 1.5 L)

When looking over the recipe again I was a little surprised how little an extra 500 g of sugars raised my OG, so I threw caution to the wind and added in an extra 300g of sucrose.

I made a few procedure changes to this brew (last time we followed the instructions in the kit box).

• Added about 4L boiling water to the bottom of the fermentor first thing (because I didn't feel super confident I could do a thorough job of cleaning the spout)
• Cooked the DME for 15m and then dissolved all the other sugars in the same pot, then tossed it in the fermentor
• Added the canned extract to this, mixed thoroughly with the other hot liquids and then began adding water
• This time I proofed the yeast prior to pitching.

I'm mostly pleased with the way the brew went this time. The only issue was wort cooling time. By the time I added all the hot ingredients I had nearly 10L in the fermentor and not enough cool water to bring it down to pitching temp, so I but the whole fermentor in a bath of ice water. It took several hours to get down to 22 degrees, which I was surprised. Also, my brewing partner was worried that the water bath might backflow into the spout and contaminate the wort.

Fingers crossed for better attenuation this time. No krausen formation after the first night.

Thanks again for the advice.

EDIT (2019-02-25): Morgan's body blend does not contain malt. From their website "Ingredients : Dextrose, Maltodextrin"