My First Recipe Attempt (suggestions and help needed)

[Nizmoose]

Okay so I'm very new to homebrewing and I'd say the least I know about is what I can do and cant do with the limitations I'm presented with. For example a kit and bit brew is easy and I'd really like to modify the design slightly because it's fun and will hopefully improve the beer. My limitation is basically that I have a primary and all the coopers kit bits, no secondary and I'm bottling and using priming sugar in each individual bottle. I want to dry hop this batch and if possible maybe include a boil but I'm a bit unsure of how to go about it so I'l make a guess or ? in the hope someone can fill in the blanks for me. It's not so much that I don't know what I want to do its that I either am not fully sure how to do it or if I can do it. Before anyone asks, the ingredient choices are based on other peoples recipies and I picked aspects I like about certain ingredients to determine what I wanted to put in

So my vastly incomplete recipe plan:

Ingredients
-Coopers Pale Ale Tin
-Coopers Amber Dry Malt 1kg
-Cascade 12g @ 60 mins
-Cascade 12g @ 0mins
-Dry hop with cascade on day___? (one recipe suggested day 5?)
-Yeast __? (would like something that encourages fruity/grapefruit esters)
-Priming sugar______? (suggestions here?)
-Coopers powder sanitiser (feel free to suggest any others that may be better?)
-6L Bottled water (to add to the fermenter on top of 16L of boiled water?)

There's a few things I don't know method wise and it is hard to find much info on extract brewing without using grain steeps/mashes.

I'll try and make a rough method of what I'd like to do in my head and it'll probably be wrong in many ways but hopefully someone can pick me up on wrong methods so I can learn before I try it I have read a LOT in the past few days and have being trying to learn as much as I can but I figured if I tried to write out a recipe and method myself and was corrected on that it'd help me sort out how to brew for my specific limitations and intentions.

Methods: (not incl. everything like sanitising etc just mainly bits im not sure on)

- Boil 650 grams of LME in 5L, add hops at above minutes
-dissolve remaining LME and DME last five minutes of boil
-pour into fermenter
-add dry/pitched yeast x.

Also if anyone wants to know the reasons I have chosen certain ingredients the cascade hops are supposed to provide a somewhat citrus flavour which I like and then for yeast I'd like something that produces maybe what you taste in a 150 lashes?

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Firstly. You wont get a 150 lashes at this level

What you are asking and what you want are VERY different.

Caramel malt comed as a grain, so you will need to steep then boil. Its not a simple addition from a tin

Dry hopping is adding hops to the fermenter before fermentation.

I think you may be a bit confused as to techique and ingrediants.

Start with a simple Coopers kit and go from there. A kit is the best way to start learning things like dry hoping.

 

[Nizmoose]

Okay thanks for the advice I thought dry hopping could be done some way through fermentation?

Also just stumbled upon the Extract recipe designer spreadsheet and holy mother of god its good. I never thought excel could ever be utilized that incredibly well and its already answered some of the questions I was having. I only just realised I would have to steep the caramel malt as a grain but that is an option for me and I might give it a try. I'll edit this one though from what I've made on the spreadsheet. I think I've cleared up a lot of my question marks now

EDIT: Okay a massive amount of blanks and question marks filled in now and a big method change now that I understand what I can and can't get away with

 

[Nizmoose]

Crap I mean finishing hops don't I

 

[jkhlt1210]

Okay thanks for the advice I thought dry hopping could be done some way through fermentation?

Also just stumbled upon the Extract recipe designer spreadsheet and holy mother of god its good. I never thought excel could ever be utilized that incredibly well and its already answered some of the questions I was having. I only just realised I would have to steep the caramel malt as a grain but that is an option for me and I might give it a try. I'll edit this one though from what I've made on the spreadsheet. I think I've cleared up a lot of my question marks now

EDIT: Okay a massive amount of blanks and question marks filled in now and a big method change now that I understand what I can and can't get away with

If you ask most people on here they will suggest dry hopping day 4 onwards during fermentation. I'm no expert but that's what I've been told by many. Each to their own but as I dry hopped before it on previous brews before learning that

 

[manticle]

Caramel malt comed as a grain, so you will need to steep then boil. Its not a simple addition from a tin

Morgans do a caramel LME or at least they used to. A while since I brewed with anything from a tin. However I can't find a reference to caramel malt in the OP's recipe.

Nizmoose - recipe ingredients looks fine. I don't believe there are grapefruit esters as such but you will get a grapefruit character from cascade.
Use the spreadsheet to get the amounts right for the beer you are after (IBU, gravity etc) and use US05 yeast which will let the hops shine. Because the tin is pre-bittered, you will probably get away with later hop additions rather than needing a 60 minute addition. Maybe some at 10 and some at 0. I would also consider adding 250 dextrose or if you want the lower abv, replacing some of the dried malt with a touch (100 - 250g). Dex will give more gravity by weight than the malt but the spreadsheet will help you work that out.

Dry hop after active fermentation is complete. Go for 1g per litre and adjust up or down for your next brew according to taste.

As for sanitiser - investigate using starsan or iodophor. They are very cost effective over time, very effective sanitisers and have the advantage of not needing rinsing when used in correct proportions. Delineate between cleaning and sanitising too.

 

[Nizmoose]

Thanks so much manticle just the advice I was after, those little tweaks caramel malt was mentioned by me but then I edited to the amber malt extract, partly due to being told it doesn't exist but also the spreadsheet didn't have caramel malt there either keen to try this out now

 

[gsouth82]

Okay so I'm very new to homebrewing and I'd say the least I know about is what I can do and cant do with the limitations I'm presented with. For example a kit and bit brew is easy and I'd really like to modify the design slightly because it's fun and will hopefully improve the beer. My limitation is basically that I have a primary and all the coopers kit bits, no secondary and I'm bottling and using priming sugar in each individual bottle. I want to dry hop this batch and if possible maybe include a boil but I'm a bit unsure of how to go about it so I'l make a guess or ? in the hope someone can fill in the blanks for me. It's not so much that I don't know what I want to do its that I either am not fully sure how to do it or if I can do it. Before anyone asks, the ingredient choices are based on other peoples recipies and I picked aspects I like about certain ingredients to determine what I wanted to put in

So my vastly incomplete recipe plan:

Ingredients
-Coopers Pale Ale Tin
-Coopers Amber Dry Malt 1kg
-Cascade 12g @ 60 mins
-Cascade 12g @ 0mins
-Dry hop with cascade on day___? (one recipe suggested day 5?)
-Yeast __? (would like something that encourages fruity/grapefruit esters)
-Priming sugar______? (suggestions here?)
-Coopers powder sanitiser (feel free to suggest any others that may be better?)
-6L Bottled water (to add to the fermenter on top of 16L of boiled water?)

There's a few things I don't know method wise and it is hard to find much info on extract brewing without using grain steeps/mashes.

I'll try and make a rough method of what I'd like to do in my head and it'll probably be wrong in many ways but hopefully someone can pick me up on wrong methods so I can learn before I try it I have read a LOT in the past few days and have being trying to learn as much as I can but I figured if I tried to write out a recipe and method myself and was corrected on that it'd help me sort out how to brew for my specific limitations and intentions.

Methods: (not incl. everything like sanitising etc just mainly bits im not sure on)

- Boil 650 grams of LME in 5L, add hops at above minutes
-dissolve remaining LME and DME last five minutes of boil
-pour into fermenter
-add dry/pitched yeast x.

Also if anyone wants to know the reasons I have chosen certain ingredients the cascade hops are supposed to provide a somewhat citrus flavour which I like and then for yeast I'd like something that produces maybe what you taste in a 150 lashes?

I agree with what everyone has said.
I also like to point out that Coopers don't make an Amber DME (that I'm aware of). Perhaps you could use a Coopers Amber LME tin 1.5kg?
You also said in your method to boil some LME which I assume is the coopers pale ale tin? I wouldn't boil the any of the tin, as it's already hopped. Boil the unhopped extract.
Having used the Pale Ale tin a lot, I would take manticles advice and do your hop additions at 10 and 0. There is a nice level of bitterness in the tin already. You'd be better off brining out the flavour and aroma of the hops which is done during late additions.
Good Luck!

 

[Nizmoose]

Thanks yeah I'm swapping the amber malt lme for dme which is unhopped I could boil that couldn't I?

 

[gsouth82]

Yep, unhopped liquid extract (LME) or dry extract (DME) is fine for the boil.
It's not recommended to boil the kit tins because it can cause flavour issues because of the hops already in them.

 

[Nizmoose]

Yeah that makes sense, the spreadsheet does say to add the tin to the boil with 5 minutes remaining though which I'm assuming is just an alternative to dissolving it in the fermenter. I might as well just pour the tin into the fermenter and dissolve it there yeah?

 

[gsouth82]

I doubt 5 minutes would do much to the kit tin and your right, its probably to help dissolve it.
I usually just chuck it in the fermenter and give it a good stir once I've added the hot water.
If you are going to put the kit tin (or any tin for that matter) straight into the fermenter, leave them in a sink of hot water for 10 minutes. It makes the goo a little runnier which helps when getting it out.