Question about Coopers IPA kit and Citra/Amarillo hop addition

[soma5eeker]

Hi everyone, this is my first post. Thanks for reading.

I'm new to homebrewing and have so far only prepared about a half dozen kit extract brews (all Coopers). I've done the IPA kit several times and have had the most success with it. This time around I'd like to bolster the profile a bit by adding some hops.

I have 90g of both Citra and Amarillo hops, what I'd like is suggestions as to how I could add these and in what quantity. My basic plan was to add 30g of one of the hops when heating the 500g of light dry malt and 300g of dextrose (maybe up to 600g to up the final alcohol volume a little), in 2L of water (as suggested by the kit). Then I figured I'd dry-hop the brew with 30g of the other hop after the krausen subsides (from experience with this kit that will be after around 3 to 4 days). I'd then allow the brew to finish fermenting, leave for an additional day or two and then bottle with priming drops.

I would appreciate suggestions regarding;
- quantity
- which hop should be used initially and which as the dry-hop
- any other relevant suggestions that don't involve additional components

I have a thermostat controlled brewing fridge and intend to pitch and brew at 18 degrees celcius.

Thanks very much for any advice you can provide!

 

[Tahoose]

What are you aiming to get out of your hops? More flavour or bitterness, I'm assuming that you want aroma seeing as you are going to dry hop.

I'd be using Amarillo for the boil and the citra for the dry hop ( citra is regarded as a great hop for this)

Generally you want to work off a 1.040 gravity for your boil if you are adding in some hops, the easiest way to get this is by adding 100g of your coopers tin per 1ltr of water.

I'd really suggest bulk priming aswell for a even carbonation and on the plus it saves a couple of dollars but that's your call.

 

[NewtownClown]

100 g of liquid extract would be closer to 1.030
110 g of dry extract would be much closer to 1.040

Kit tins are already hopped so should not really be boiled.

A 2 litre boil is not the best for for hop utilisation - the larger the better

Search on here for the Kit & Extract Spreadsheet, it will show you how much bitterness will be extracted from your hops

 

[soma5eeker]

Hi guys, thanks very much for the replies.

Yes I was hoping to improve the flavour profile a little with the initial hop addition, then aroma with the dry-hopping. I was expecting that citra would be better for the dry-hop.

I hadn't considered adding part of the tin extract to the boil, I hadn't heard of doing this before... I'd perform a bulk priming but don't have the resources to do so.

I checked out the Kit and Extract spreadsheet, thanks. I think it is clearly above my current level of understanding, I'll have to spend some more time reading before I think I can really utilise it...

Anyway, for this attempt I think I will boil the 500g of light DME with 600g of dextrose and 30g of amarillo (in a hop bag) in 5L of water. Then dry-hop with 30g of the citra.

Clearly I'm not at the point of calculating IBU values and such, but if there is anything blatantly wrong about this approach could you please let me know.

Cheers