First Pimped Kit: (Inspired by) James Squire Hop Thief

[Drop It Like It's Hop]

After making a few kit & kilo's back at university, I decided to take my first steps towards "real" brewing and pimp up a kit before moving on to a full extract brew - providing me to practice steeping and hop additions without committing to a full extract recipe.

I recently tried a James Squire Hop Thief 6 for the first time and quite enjoyed it, so I decided to put together what I hope will be a similar style brew. After searching for a clone recipe and playing around with the Kit & Extract Excel spreadsheet to tweak things I finally pulled the trigger this morning (recipe below):

Ingredients

1 Coopers Pale Ale Brew Can (1.7kg)
400g Thomas Fawcett Crystal, Medium ( EBC 120-140)
1kg Light Dried Malt Extract
300g Amber Dried Malt Extract
35g Columbus Hops (US14 AA 15.7% )
35g Simcoe Hops (US13 AA 13%)
Safale US-05 Yeast


Directions
Heat 5L of water to 67C and steep Crystal for 30 minutes
Remove Crystal and steep to one side 15m in 3L room temperature water
Add 500g of Light DME to wort and bring to a rolling boil
20 Mins: Add 10g Columbus & 10g Simcoe Hops
8 minutes: Add 10g Columbus & 10g Simcoe Hops
Cool wort and strain into fermenter
Add remaining 700g Light DME, 300g Amber DME and Brew Can
Top up to 23L and pitch yeast
Dry hop on Day 6 with 15g Columbus & 15g Simcoe

Stats
Target OG: 1.047
Target FG: 1.012
Target EBC: 18.7
Target IBC: 37.5

My main learning point from the boil was that straining even 5L of wort is a pain, I might need to investigate installing a tap onto my $19 Big W pot to make things easier when I step up to full pot boils.

 

[menoetes]

Hey Drop it,

Good to hear you're getting into the pimped out kits & bits - you can get some solidly nice beer from that method. Certainly better than some of the megaswill beers that are out there.

A tip though, get yourself a grain bag - it makes straining the grain and hops etc really easy. You can even have it lining the pot during the boil if you like; a couple of bullclips to keep the bag fastened around the rim of the pot and you're golden. You just lift the whole thing out at the end, give it a squeeze to get out the last juices and you're done.

- Meno

 

[Drop It Like It's Hop]

G'day Meo - I did use a grain bag when steeping the Crystal however I had to strain everything at the end as my hop pellets turned to mush in the boil. Is this normal?

 

[menoetes]

That sure is normal, the pellets themselves are only finely ground hop leaves crushed into a dry pellet form. Some people use a hop sock when boiling to keep their hops from getting into the fermenter at the end, others don't even bother with any kind of straining.

I'm one of the latter, I find it easier and not as messy - the hops all drop to the bottom on the fermenter anyway after a week or so. You do whatever you feel most comfortable with though.

 

[Drop It Like It's Hop]

Just took the first gravity reading after 11 days in primary and it's down to 1.011 - the sample had great head and tasted pretty much as hoped, perhaps a little bit over-hoppy compared however I'm sure this will smooth out with some bottle conditioning. Will need to do a side-by-side taste test with the JS Hop Thief when it's done.

Now it's time for a 48h cold crash (ie. loading up the swamp cooler with ice!) before bottling on the weekend.

Will keep you posted once it's ready to drink

 

[Seeker]

I was using the Big W stock pot for extract & 6 months ago decided to buy an urn, and that's been my best brewing purchase so far.

Vastly improves beer, less faff and you can just leave it in the garage while heating, mashing and boiling, so it actually saves me time even though the brew day is longer as I get time to do other stuff.

Cost me ~$200 inc delivery (They regularly have sales here ).

The only thing needed to do full mash is a grain bag. I actually find all grain as easy as extract was because you don't have to work around extract issues - cloudy beer, mixing the powder in, making up for lack of malt taste etc. 6 brews in and I've had one average beer due to excess water (saved it though). Every other beer has been fantastic.

Cost per brew is now ~$30 as grain and hops are bought in bulk and yeast is re-used.