due to availability limitations in my area (finland - only one non-industry brew shop in the whole freakin' country), have been doing kit&kilo's for some time now
finally got my hands on some hops recently, so have the following: Coopers brewmaster pilsner, dextrose and saaz dry pellets. any suggestions for my plan of attack would be great.
Without knowing how much pellets you have, but assuming 50g, do something simple like half the pellets for 30 mins, kit & dextrose for 15, remaining pellets @5 or so minutes to go.
This will add some bitterness and some of the saaz flavour to your kit.
In my opinion, and bear in mind this is a subject that divides, loosely adhering to, allowing for variations with beer, the following procedure always makes for a better kit beer.
It is always worth reading a little about the style of beer you want to produce, whether it wants flavour hops, aroma hops etc
Bittering hops for 30-45 minutes, you can go as far as 60 too. This is best done with at least a small amount of malt for efficiency in extracting the hop bitterness. It depends on the hops and the beer.
Kit, malt, dextrose, whichever it is, for 15. Readings I have done suggests that 15 is the best balance between achieving a good boil and not starting to darken your wort too much.
Flavour hops for 10 minutes, or even 5. You don't want to boil them too long as they will tend towards being bittering hops.
Aroma hops @end. You can start to get into dry hopping etc in secondary but to start with putting hops in a stocking or nylon bag at the end and then in the fermenter will give you a good start aroma wise.
They tend not to give you a strong hop aroma done like this, but then maybe I just wasn't using enough...
This method worked well for me when I was doing kit & kilos. Adding hops and some malt extract and/or dextrose makes a big improvement.
