Sparkling Ale + Pride Of Ringwood

[a_quintal]

Hi guys im fairly new to the art and am about to undertake my first attempt at adding something extra to the Beer Kit recipe. I have a Thomas
Coopers Sparkling Ale kit and intend to follow the recipe:

1.5kg Thomas Coopers Light Malt Extract, 500g Coopers Light Dry Malt and 300g Coopers Dextrose.

However, I have some Pride of Ringwood at home and was wondering what your opinions would be in regards to adding it to my kit. Beyond that, if you do advise adding some what amount? and at what point do you recommend? I was thinking adding of 8g and throwing them straight in the fermenter with the yeast?

Appreciate any feedback : )

 

[BjornJ]

Hi,
adding hops is a great idea!

Often hops are seen as doing one of 3 things.
-bittering, added often at 60 mins of boil left
-flavor, added often at 15-20 mins of boil left
-aroma, added often at 5-0 mins of boil left (or in the fermenter)

As you are using a kit beer, it will have the bittering and possibly flavor hops done.
So adding a bit of hops late in the boil (or not boiling them for long) is a good way to personalize your beer, adding some hop freshness and aroma. Maybe even a bit of flavor, only depends on how long you boil them.

Pride of Ringwood is often seen as a good hop to bitter with and probably not as often for flavor/aroma.
But there is nothing wrong with trying it out.
Mix your ingredients, take half a litre of it and boil your hops for 5 mins and add the lot, or if you only want a bit of aroma, put them in your fermenter after 3 days.
This way the most active part of the fermentation does not "wash" out your hop aromas.


Adding hops is a great way to spice up the kit beer, and makes it your own


thanks
Bjorn

 

[BjornJ]

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...9655&st=180
if you use the spreadsheet found in this post, you can choose the kit you use, how much dextrose and malt extract, etc and find your expected Original and Final Gravity, and the expected alc %.

Adding your sparkling ale kit and the 1.5 kg of Liquid malt, 500 gr of dried malt and 300 gr of dextrose, the spreadsheet gives an OG of 1.056 and a FG of 1.013.
This assumes 75% attenuation of your yeast, and gives a bottle carbonated alc % of 5.9.

View attachment Kit___Extract_Beer_Designer_V2.2.xls


Hope this helps,

thanks
Bjorn

 

[mfdu]

PoR is under-rated for flavour / aroma additions. it's spicy, and i like it.

as per your subject sub-heading, hope springs eternal.

 

[a_quintal]

fantastic replies. Definitely more info than I could have hoped for. I was just getting a little confused looking round the net. Thanks heaps for the posts BjornJ. I'll definitely be using that spreadsheet. I'll report back in 4 weeks to tell how it turned out. I think I've found the right forum to stick with for homebrew : )

 

[BjornJ]

Yes, this is a good site, all right


I haven't dry hopped for a while, come to think of it maybe I should do it with my current one.

I have seen comments on here from experienced brewers saying to use a gram of hops per litre of beer when dryhopping.
To me that maybe sounds a bit much, but you can probably go higher than 8 grams.

How about boiling the 8 gr for 5 min and tip this hop tea in the fermenter.
Then after 3 or 4 days put another hop bag in the fermenter with say 10-15 grams?

I use those small gift bags from a $2 shop for hops so they don't go all over the place. Those small netting bags with pull strings.

there is a short article here: http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...;showarticle=11


thanks
Bjorn

 

[a_quintal]

Yes, this is a good site, all right

glad you told me that. cheers


I haven't dry hopped for a while, come to think of it maybe I should do it with my current one.

I have seen comments on here from experienced brewers saying to use a gram of hops per litre of beer when dryhopping.
To me that maybe sounds a bit much, but you can probably go higher than 8 grams.

How about boiling the 8 gr for 5 min and tip this hop tea in the fermenter.
Then after 3 or 4 days put another hop bag in the fermenter with say 10-15 grams?

I use those small gift bags from a $2 shop for hops so they don't go all over the place. Those small netting bags with pull strings.

there is a short article here: http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...;showarticle=11


thanks
Bjorn

 

[a_quintal]

glad you told me that. cheers

 

[a_quintal]

glad you told me that. cheers

just bottling it tonight. had a bit of a taste and seems very promising. thanks for the help again