Favourite Kit And Extract Brew - Looking For Recommendations

[Rod]

Rod's ENGLISH BITTER

Coopers ENGLISH BITTER 1 can

Light Dry Malt 1Kg

Crystal 0.25 Kg

KISS

 

[syl]

The beer that got me back in to doing extract and kits - I won't post the recipe - it is pre-loaded in Ian's spreadsheet and you must check that out!!! The kit version is a piece of piss and the beer is lovely!

 

[mwd]

I have just bottled my version of this and can confirm it makes a fine beer still green but I have downed two bottles yeast haze and all.
Recommend anybody intending to have a go at extract to do this one. I used Briess extract with 250g Carabohemian steeped. Hops used were Simcoe Chinook and some Galaxy I had to get rid of. Could have done with a bit more hop for my taste and I screwed up the volume slightly and ended up with about 23.5litres. Nice easy drinking beer in its present form.

This didn't last too long but as usual the last two bottles were the best. Screwed up on the bulk priming a bit and ended up over carbonated but still better than most kits I have done thanks to Argonaut for the ideas.

 

[JakeSm]

This is all good stuff! I can sympathise with the time restraints - with two kiddies under three and a full time job finding the time to get right into the detail can be difficult. To paraphrase RobboMC all in good time.

I like the sound of the 10 min APA recipe which Arghonaut shared... I'll have a play in the sheet to see what I come up with.

Has anyone brewed an American Brown Ale, or an Amber Ale from a kit?

I have brewed a few of each of these types with kits and i must say use the Coopers Real Ale tin for both of these or if you wanted it a bit more fruity than go with the Thomas Coopers Sparkling ale tin.

Both these beers are malty and dark so use a good amount of malt and i would also use some crystal or caramunich in the amber and crystal and a few dark choc malted grains in the brown. (im talking like 60g dark and 200g crystal.)

Use the frutiy american hops for the brown (amarillo and cascade) and use fuggles for the amber. (this hop smells like apricot or another stone fruit when opened. I love it).

Hope this helps.
Cheers jake.

 

[wbosher]

Using the spreadsheet, if I were to boil 100g NZ Cascade for 10 minutes, I'd only end up with an IBU of about 31 - not enough for me.

Boiling the same quantity for 15 minutes gives IBU of 42. Would the extra 5 minutes affect it badly in any way?

 

[bum]

Depends what you mean by "it". Do you mean the hops? No. You'll get slightly less flavour and aroma but with 100g I think you'll be fine (assuming single batch size) but if you're boiling a kit the it may be negatively impacted by a longer boil - the flavour gets boiled off there too. If the gravity of your boil is higher than 1040, look at lowering it and see how much closer the 10 min boil will get you to your desired IBU (assuming you're not boiling full volume).

 

[wbosher]

Thinking about a 5L boil with 500g DME - that should be about 1040. I guess a lot of that would boil away in a 60 minute boil.

My original plan was a 60 min boil
30g Cascade @ 60min
30g Cascade @ 20min
20 Dry hopped

The 60 and 20 min additions gave me around 41 IBU. Throwing the whole 100g bag in for 15 minutes would give me the same bitterness but wondering how if would affect the flavour.

Sorry about the dumb questions, never played around with hops before. Only ever brewed kit beers, looking at my first extract and there are so many different recipes and suggestions.

 

[bum]

It will greatly increase the hop flavour and aroma compared to your original plan. The 15 minute boil seems to be a good compromise given your requirements. That being said you may see a better product if you can manage to boil a larger portion of your final volume. You'd have to do a search for the reasons behind that though, I don't spend a lot of time memorising all the science - I generally just try to remember all the up-shots.

Just checking - the IBU is for the full batch size and not the boil, right? I'd assume so with 100gm in 5L but there is a very important difference so the question is worth asking.

 

[wbosher]

Yes IBU is for a full 23L batch, using Ian's spreadsheet. I've posted the recipe on another thread somewhere but it's something like:

23L
LDME - 2.5kg
Medium Crystal - 200g
Dextrose - 500g
Cascade - 30g @ 60min
Cascade - 30g @ 20min
Cascade - 20g Dry hop

Yeast - US05

IBU - 41.2
EBC - 14

OG - 1.051
FG - 1.009

%Alc - 5.9 (bottle)

5L boil with 500g DME


That's the plan so far anyway, but still a work in progress...

 

[pcmfisher]

I have done various experiments boiling more hops for a lesser time to give the desired bitterness.
I tried 10min up to 30mins.
My results varied by which hop I used. Some were ok, but with most of them the bitterness was not as smoothe as if I did a 60min boil.
Got to do with the cohumulone level of the particular hop so I've heard.
Lower is smoother. :icon_cheers:

 

[RobboMC]

You might want to try and spread the hop additions rather than just go for an IBU level with one addition.

Long boil times give more bitterness ( say 20-60 min ) and less flavour
Meduim boil time ( say 10-20 min ) give more flavour and less bitterness and some aroma
short boil time ( less than 10 min ) give less flavour and more aroma and negligible bitterness

Ideally you want a beer with bitterness, flavour and aroma ( depending on the style of course )

Good beers usually have at least 2 hop additions,
great beers can have 5 or more additions.

I've even thought about doing an experiment and adding one pellet each minute.

 

[wbosher]

So maybe something like this?

Cascade - 15g @ 60min
Cascade - 15g @ 40min
Cascade - 20g @ 20min
Cascade - 20g @ 10min
Cascade - 20g Dry hop



Would still provide the same IBU of around 40, but have a lot more flavour and aroma. Or would that be overdoing it a bit?

 

[bum]

Some of what Robbo says isn't wrong (although the stuff about number of additions is pretty much ********) but it is entirely possible to make a great APA with all late hop additions. Assuming you are using the spreadsheet correctly, the reported IBU will be correct (or close enough to it that you can't tell the difference).

Go with your gut if that's what you feel will work. You won't wreck it, it'll just be different.

 

[tricache]

Some of what Robbo says isn't wrong (although the stuff about number of additions is pretty much ********) but it is entirely possible to make a great APA with all late hop additions. Assuming you are using the spreadsheet correctly, the reported IBU will be correct (or close enough to it that you can't tell the difference).

Go with your gut if that's what you feel will work. You won't wreck it, it'll just be different.

That is pretty much my theory with any beers I make...you can never make a "bad" beer (within reason of course) it will just be different

 

[wbosher]

Thanks guys. I might go with my original plan:

Cascade - 30g @ 60min
Cascade - 30g @ 20min
Cascade - 20g Dry hop

That way if I do shorten the boil at a later stage, I've got something to compare it with.

 

[wbosher]

I do have one more question though, how does one adjust the amount of hops in a boil if the gravity reading is above 1.040?

The is a thread doing a BIAB where the gravity reading is 1.060, so more hops are added to account for this. The OP (Nick JD I think) said that he was adding 25% more hops due to this. I'm not sure how that figure was reached, any ideas?

EDIT: Here- http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...st&p=627428

 

[GuyQLD]

Don't know if you're looking for any future ideas but this has got to be the easiest extract recipe in existance.. And drunk fresh its a surprisingly good beer.

Made mine with a 1.5kg malt since I couldn't find a 1kg one at the time. Was fantastic for the amount of effort it required.

STEP 2: Ingredients
1.7kg Thomas Coopers Wheat Beer kit
1kg Thomas Coopers Wheat Malt
11.5g WB-06 or Munich yeast

Straight from the coopers website.