Latest pale ale..

[JFergz]

I'm all for my pale ales as the bread n butter to my taps but just tasted the latest for the first time after a week in the keg and wow this will be a staple pour from one of my taps full time!

So it went like this...

1 can of black rock golden ale

650gm of light dry malt

350gm of Dex

250gm of maltodextrin

20gm of Galaxy

Danstar Nottingham ale yeast.

Add kit and malt to 2L of water and bring to a rolling boil.

Add hop pallets (in a sock I chose) and boil for 5 mins.

Flame out and let sit for 15 mins.

Add the lot to fermenter and and bring volume to 21L an added yeast at 25c allowed to sit overnight in fermentation fridge before setting it to 18c gave it a week to clean up after fermentation stabilised and then crashed for 4 days at 0c before kegging. A week in the keg and wow! Don't know if this will last long enough for me to let it age anymore lol

 

[JFergz]

Not my recipe just to mention old mate from the local HB store gave me the goods!

 

[Gigantorus]

Nice one. Looks great too. Congrats.

Cheers,
Pete

 

[Rocker1986]

What's the reasoning behind boiling the kit? Sounds like a nice recipe but boiling kits isn't recommended.

 

[jbaker9]

Kits come prehopped according to the manufacturer recipe, I expect they recommend to not boil as it will result in additional hop isomerisation, but this should all be taken into account in the recipe. For the flavour hop addition (15 mins) the boil is required.

Sounds like you're about ready to move to proper recipes with unhopped extract + steeping grains.

 

[JFergz]

What's the reasoning behind boiling the kit? Sounds like a nice recipe but boiling kits isn't recommended.

Hey Rocker, the boil wasn't for the kit itself it was for the additional hops, as far as I have learnt and from what I taste from my brews Boiling the hops is for the alpha acids they offer that contribute to a further bitterness of the kit then steeped for flavour and aroma.

Turned out a serious session beer! [emoji108]

 

[Rocker1986]

I understand that, it's just in the initial post you've written that you added the kit and malt to 2L of water and brought it to a rolling boil, which incidentally would provide very little bitterness due to the 5 minute boil and the crazy high SG of the wort. The boil in this instance is purely for added flavour and aroma, not increasing the bitterness.

It would probably have been better off done with 200g of the malt in the 2 litres of water.

 

[JFergz]

Will keep it mind for the next one Rocker thanks heaps bud!

 

[Rocker1986]

No dramas.. that's what I used to do when brewing extract beers or doing hop boils with kits, just add about 100g dry malt per litre of water. Never boiled the kits themselves. A 5 minute boil will contribute a small amount of bitterness but it would probably not be noticed in the beer at the glass. Obviously the flavour and aroma was though which was the idea. B)

 

[Aussie Mick]

Thanks for sharing this JFergz

I have just put this on with a few changes. I didn't have any Dex or Maltodex so I substituted this by using 1 kg LDM, and 200gms Dry wheat malt.

Also I had no Galaxy, so I used around 20 gms each of Cascade and Amarillo. I am fermenting it with a recycled US-05 yeast from my last brew.

This is my fist venture away from using Coopers products, so I am looking forward to this one. It would be good to hear suggestions regarding dry hopping on this brew from those who have brewed it.

 

[Quokka42]

Boiling kits won't increase isomerisation of the hops, as they aren't there any more. What it does do is reduce hop flavour and can caramalise and darken the wort. This is not always a bad thing, as you have the original bitterness and hop combination of the kit which you can build on with later hop additions.

If I feel a little more confident later I will post a couple of my kit based recipes.

If you make any of the Coopers recipes and they say to include the kit yeast, throw it in the freezer and use an extra sachet of the 3rd party yeast if necessary (e.g. Safale yeast will usually work well with one sachet if temperature and oxygenation are right.)