2 questions, 2 brews

Hi everybody,

I started my second batch with Morgan's Dockside Stout kit and the accompanying Master Blend roasted dark malt extract (can see the package at: http://www.sakeland.net/?pid=21438922 though it is all described in Japanese).
The master blend thing is 1.5 kilos and the kit itself is the same I believe, so 3 kilos of black muck that smells like beer. To this, during a 60 minute 8-liter boil I added irish moss at minute 35 and the hops pellets around 7 minutes before the end. After cooling, I mixed it with the other 8 liters I boiled earlier in the fermenter to have 16 total liters, pitched the yeast, covered it, and it seems to be fermenting just fine.
My plan it to add 3 sliced-open vanilla beans in a secondary fermentation after about a week. For this purpose, I just ordered a new plastic fermentation bucket, some tubes, bottle filler, adapter, etc. to avoid oxidation from the transfer.
My question is that where I look online or indeed on the recipe from the morgan's kit itself, the trend is to call for 1 kilo of malt extract crystal, but this kit came with 1.5 and I put it all in. Also, my volume is only 16 liters. Is this going to be a bit too compact or malty? Should I dry hop or otherwise compensate?
Next, does 3 vanilla beans seem right? I read online that 2 is too few and 4 is too much, but that doesn't mean that 3 is just right or just right for this recipe. Any thoughts would be appreciated and directly impact how vanilla-ey this stout becomes.

Second beer:
Based on a recommendation, I am using a home brew kit website as a basis for starting my first non-kit beer. The website I am using is: http://www.brewsupply.com/HowTo/Recipes/smpaleale.html
However, the brew supply stores available here in Tokyo do not have Columbus hops, so I ordered some with a comparable though slightly less 12% alpha. They are called "Simcoe", in pellet form, and I intend to use them for bittering. I ordered 24 grams of the pellets, which is roughly 0.8 ounces. I have 100g of cascades in leaf form in a sealed bag already, so I plan to use those according to the recipe and then maybe even dry hop with what I have left. I wonder if the amounts I should use are different between leaf hops and pellets?
Also, for the malt there were no 20L or 10L things, so I ordered a bunch of what is called "C15" crystal malt and 100 g of a crisp malting pale ale malt, in case this matters. It is unclear what C15 is, but from the website it seems to be the least dark of their crystal malts and it is the same thing, made in the US, etc.
Am I going to screw up on the hopping here? Any idea what you would do with these ingredients to approximate the recipe on that site?

first beer: your kit was probably intended to make approx. 5 gallons like most kits, so your 16 liters is a bit short. if it tastes too strong to you when it's complete, you can add water after the fact. be sure to boil it to remove all the dissolved oxygen and sanitize it. 3 vanilla beans would be OK. it's very subjective, so i suggest allowing the beans to sit in the beer for a while, taste it after a few days, and take the beans out when you're satisfied with the flavor.

second beer: leaf and pellet measures are pretty much the same. pellets may be used at 10% lower amounts or so due to higher utilization. C15 is crystal 15L, which as you might guess, is right between the 10L and 20L in terms of color and flavor. it'll be fine. The pale ale malt is almost certainly not a crystal malt, but a base malt that would need to be mashed in order to use it. I'd leave it out. Use all the simcoe @60 mins, and the prescribed amount of cascade at 15 minutes and 0 minutes. Use 16 oz of crystal 15L if you want to approximate that recipe the closest.

You might consider trying out the demo of Beersmith brewing software - I love it and highly recommend it. It will help you make a lot of these decisions and see the impact right away.

good luck!

Thanks very much! I appreciate your thoughtful and detailed comment.

One of the reasons I am brewing beer right now is I can't afford to drink beer otherwise - it is about 3$ per can here. So, what I am saying is I may not be able to afford this Beer Smith software, and tempting myself with the demo seems just a prelude to the torture of inability to use it later.
Perhaps one day if I win the lottery or the government decides student loans should be forgiven!

My friend just told me about a free piece of brewing software called BrewMate that you might want to take a look at. I haven't used it myself, so I can't vouch for it personally.

www.brewmate.net

Ar, I lack the proper PC to run such software. Ah well. Thanks for the tip anyway!

there are some free tools available (spreadsheets, etc.) that can help, but proper brewing software is much easier to use in recipe formulation. Consider it in the future. You'll be able to make good beer with minimal equipment, a bit of practice, and a reasonable amount of care, but I think you'll find that this can become a very expensive hobby two things I recommend as near necessities: buy a wort chiller, and always use a starter with liquid yeasts.

I have a follow up question -
PintOfBitter wrote "The pale ale malt is almost certainly not a crystal malt, but a base malt that would need to be mashed in order to use it. I'd leave it out."
The pale ale malt looks to be processed in the same way as the other malts and therefore, I believe, a crystal malt. If so, should I still leave it out?
Do they look visually different if not crystal?

Never mind, I was wrong, it is not crystal. Sorry!

OK, the stout is vanillaed (with rum) in the secondary and the pale ale is now pitched as of 2:40 AM.

I added about double the amount of cascades as are in the recipe because you only live once, and I got tired of waiting for things to cool down so I added this product called "clean ice", which does not apparently refer to its cleanliness but rather how hard it is to melt. Apparently they take their time in freezing it which makes it difficult to melt somehow. I am guessing this is bad for my beer to the extent contaminants are likely in ice, but we'll see how it goes. Perhaps "clean ice" will become a fixture of Tokyo summer brewing for years to come, or perhaps it will be my foe.