Amarillo Good In Which Coopers Kit Beers?

[iralosavic]

I'm putting down one last full extract/kit brew before Christmas. My e-keggle build will be operational after that and there'll be no turning back.

I've got a surpless of Amarillo hop pellets. Which of the Big W available kits would be complimented/enhanced with Amarillo?





Cheers

 

[Pennywise]

I used to always thorw some Amarillo in the Pale Ale kit, along with a bit of light-med crystal. Came out good, especially if using Wyeast 1272

 

[Liam_snorkel]

either the australian pale ale or real ale. have done both with drinkable results.

 

[iralosavic]

Cheers, guys. I'm putting together Dr Smurto's Golden ale and overstocked on the amarillo for it - makes sense it'd be suited to a kit pale ale too.

What boil schedule do you use for pellets a coopers kit ale?

 

[Supra-Jim]

I did a few successful brews with the Canadian Blonde kit and a healthy does of amarillo.

Cheers SJ

 

[Liam_snorkel]

Cheers, guys. I'm putting together Dr Smurto's Golden ale and overstocked on the amarillo for it - makes sense it'd be suited to a kit pale ale too.

What boil schedule do you use for pellets a coopers kit ale?

just flavour & aroma additions generally - so anything under 20mins.

eg, a mini boil of a 10:1 ratio of water to LDME, with something like 5-10g at 15, 10, 5, and 0 mins.

 

[iralosavic]

Thinking I'll do another Canadian Blonde so I can compare the difference with the one I'm about to rack, which was just kit + BE1.

So a mini boil with 1kg LDME, will I really need 10L? Might have to make it 6L as my stockpot is 9L at the brim.


Cheers

 

[petesbrew]

Thinking I'll do another Canadian Blonde so I can compare the difference with the one I'm about to rack, which was just kit + BE1.

So a mini boil with 1kg LDME, will I really need 10L? Might have to make it 6L as my stockpot is 9L at the brim.


Cheers

I think Kmart or BigW have 15 or 19L stock pots reasonably priced.
Either that or just boil up half the LDME in your 9L pot, & dump the other half in the fermenter.

 

[Liam_snorkel]

Well, ideally you will want the SG of your boil to be close to the SG of your what ends up in the fermenter.

Someone else with bigger smarts than me could explain in detail how this is for proper utilisation of your hops.
10:1 ratio of water to LDME gets you to about 1.040.

Boil whatever volume you like, at that ratio, then chuck the leftover LDME in at the end.

 

[petesbrew]

Well, ideally you will want the SG of your boil to be close to the SG of your what ends up in the fermenter.

Someone else with bigger smarts than me could explain in detail how this is for proper utilisation of your hops.
10:1 ratio of water to LDME gets you to about 1.040.

Boil whatever volume you like, at that ratio, then chuck the leftover LDME in at the end.

Better way of putting it.
I just do it, then figure out what went wrong afterwards. :icon_cheers:

 

[Liam_snorkel]

soz, didn't see your post until after I'd hit enter.
cheers, how good is beer! :beer:

 

[yum beer]

cheers, how good is beer! :beer:

yes, beer is GOOD

 

[boingk]

Recipe for above post:

1.7kg Coopers kit (I use Lager, Draught or Pale Ale as base)

150g LDME in 1 litre water, bring to boil. Add 20g Amarillo @ 15min. Pitch to fermenter along with kit.

Add another 350g LDME and 300g white sugar (or dextrose) to fermenter then top to 21 litres with cold water.

Ferment at 18~20'C (assuming kti yeast) and dry hop with 15~20g Amarillo 48~72hrs before bottling.


That'll use some Amarillo up for you, and also give you a decently drinkable beer for the holiday period.


Cheers - boingk

 

[RobboMC]

I know you said supermarket kits but if you can get to a HBS to get a Sparkling Ale kit that would be more in tune with Dr Smurto's kit recipe, along with 250-500g of steeped crystal grain; and use wheat malt instead of regular malt.

Alternatively you could use a Pilsener kit to get close, but that's a HBS trip as well so I guess if the supermarket is your only option then Pale Ale would be the go as a good starter. If it's full extract i assume you're using dry malt instead of sugar. Makes me realise how lucky I am to have a HBS within 2 km of work.

 

[iralosavic]

Thanks a lot for the replies, gentlemen. I'm not looking at spending more than $20 for this kit brew, as I need to put what I can towards keeping ahead with my grain stocks.

You recipe looks interesting, Boingk. Saves on using a full kg of LDME too. I notice your ratio is 150g/1L...

I was playing around in Beersmith and it says 1kg LDME in 10L = 1.036 SG with a 630ml boil off (I think, by memory). This factors in boiloff and adjusts the preboil volume, so it is implying that the ratio of 1:10 = 1.036 with LDME.
I needed to beef it up to 1kg/8L to get 1.041.

Anyone care to comment on that?


Edit: are pellets ok for dry hopping?

 

[boingk]

The calculated boil-off is assuming its a rolling boil and for a period of one hour, from memory. Bit uneccessary on this level - wait until you go allgrain for that kinda stuff.

My recipe is based on my standard formula for kit/extract ales; I use a standard kit as nothing more than a pre-bittered malt extract base, and build on it with specialty grains and hopping to make a style of beer. Stock 'Lager' or 'Draught' kits are good because they are very light malt with around 25 IBU's so leave room for specialty grains and hopping without going overboard or making it unpalatable. Stock additions are 500g LDME and 300g white sugar/dextrose for a 'standard' ale. Add up to 400g specialty grains for style in a mini-mash, but consider removing 100~150g of the LDME if using over 200g of specialty grains and aiming for a lighter style of beer.

I have used the 150g/1L method in the past with reasonable results, the theory being you are able to get better hop utilisation with the higher concentrate of malt, and seeing as you're not doing a full regime of hopping (starting at 60 minutes and finishing at flameout) it makes sense to condense the whole thing. Essentially I use it for one or two small additions of hopping... usually 30g total maximum. Mostly I'll just boil for 15min to get a flavour addition and to up the IBU's by a point or two, then do the rest of the additions as dryhopping for more flavour and aroma.

Pellets are fine for dryhopping, but if they're in any kind of mesh retainer bag then cut that open and add them neat to the brew. This helps circulation and will give better utilisation of the hops.

Hope that helps!

Cheers - boingk

EDIT: On price, I hear you! Putting myself through pilot training and save every cent I can for flying time. My aboce 'standard' brew looks something like this:

1.7kg kit: $8~15 ($8 Homebrand Lager / $15 Coopers Pale)
500g LDME: $5.25
300g sugar: $0.30
200g grain: $1.50 (assuming $7.50/kg posted)
20g hops: $2~$5 (depending on hop and quantity bought)

That totals around $17 going budget or $24 going the high road. Very cheap, decent results, and if you want to keep yeast stocks then they're essentially free.

 

[iralosavic]

In beersmith, I created a new "equipment profile", so that I could specify the size of my own pot and then I adjusted the batch volume accordingly. The boil-off was based on a 20 minute rolling boil, which was specified in th profile section, I think. All I was saying is that beersmith believes a 1.040 SG is achieved with a 1:8 ratio LDME/Water... I'm sure hop utilisation will be fine anywhere ballpark of 1.040 anyway

Sounds like you've got partials down pat. I'm sort of jumping straight from all kit to all grain (BIAB), but I thought I'd jazz up my last kit brew a bit, seeing as I have some Amarillo surpless, given that the Dr Smurto called for 70g (90g a bag) per batch (or something like that).

Thanks for pointing out th IBU and colours of th lager and draught. Any idea what the blonde is? I think a blonde should be pretty dry and not too floral, like a lager, so I'd guess 15-25IBU, depending on the character of the hop.

So use a hop bag during the boil and just throw them in to swim for dry hopping?


Cheers

 

[boingk]

You can do it eiher way, I prefer swimming for all. Boiling in a bag is great though because you don't get as much trub. For a 20g boilup though I wouldn't bother.

No idea on the Blonde but I believe that the Coopers website has listings with IBU and EBC (colour) for all their kits. Dilute those ratings for the kits by the final volume for meaningful figures.

Yeah I've got the partials down pat pretty much... did AG for a few brews but simply couldnt justify the time it takes. It does give a far superior result but the kits n bits method really isn't too bad.

Cheers - boingk