NB Tongue Splitter - Opinions? And a question

So for my second brew attempt, I'm thinking of trying the Northern Brewer Toungue Splitter all-grain kit, rather than winging it. Has anyone brewed this? Opinions?

Since I'm a newbie, I have a question about the ingredients. The recipe includes 0.5 lbs. Dingemans Caramel Pils, and 0.5 lbs. Simpsons Caramalt. Neither of these shows up specifically in Beersmith. I assume that the Dingemans Caramel Pils is simply what Beersmith calls Cara-Pils/Dextrine, but is the Simpsons Caramalt simply Caramel/Crystal Malt? The NB site shows that its Simpsons Caramalt is 30-37L. So if I use 30L Crystal Malt in Beersmith, would that be accurate for NB's Simpsons Caramalt?

I am actually brewing this kit right now. Its in secondary at the moment and I plan on leaving it there for about 12 days or so.

The fermentation was wierd, im not an expert by any means but the air lock only moved for about a day and a half. The OG was about 1.05 and the Final was about 1.019 so it might be a bit sweet.

I will post an update once I have sampled!

woosk said:

I will post an update once I have sampled!

Click to expand...

Yes, please do.

I had trouble with mine. (It's the "Miscalculation Pale Ale" that I have listed in keg #2.) The crush on my grains was really terrible, and I got only about 57% efficiency. (I've since bought a Barley Crusher and will crush my own from now on.) Add to that that I must have boiled like a madman (and it was breezy that day) and I sent only about 4 gallons into the primary. Oddly, because of the low efficiency and the short batch, the OG was pretty close to right on, at 1.051. But because I used the full complement of hops in a short batch, the IBU's ended up at like 80. It finished at 1.011.

I've been drinking it. It actually isn't bad, it's just far too hoppy and out of balance. If the hops were scaled back to where they should have been relative to the rest, I think it would be dandy. As it is, I'll drink it because I tend to gravitate towards hoppy brews anyway, but it's not a brew I'd offer to a guest as an example of a great homebrew.

But like I said, excessive hops aside I still taste the promise of that kit. Please let me know how yours turns out.

Brewed it 051808. Still have a few left.

Good beer. My first dry hopped brew. Very hoppy, deffinately overpowers the grain.

I also brewed NB's extra Pale Ale and enjoyed it more but the Tongue Splitter was not a waste of maoney by any means

I did the extra pale ale AG and my dad did the tongue splitter extract. I'm certainly enjoying the EPA although I modified the recipe for first wort hop and dry hop instead of their hop schedule. He likes his, which I haven't had, and I like mine, which he hasn't had, so yeah...

With a name like 'Tongue Splitter', I'm not surprised this is a real hop bomb. What are the IBUs according to spec? I've eyed this kit up a couple of times.

This is some thread necromancy here, but I did this extract kit yesterday and it's fermenting like crazy right now. I'm looking forward to sampling this one in several weeks.

Anybody else do this one, either all grain or extract?

I made it about a year ago. I loved it, and was happy with the kit and the ingredients. I just checked my notes- I made an AG version in November 2008. I used Northwest ale yeast at 68 degrees, and thought it was perfect!

Definitely a good kit!

I agree, definitely a good kit. We made it about a month ago and are definitely enjoying it. However, we are serious IPA drinkers, in continual pursuit of "the hoppiest". This isn't it. As a result, Tongue Splitter goes better with a variety of food pairings (think spicy BBQ especially), so it's a success in my book. We've made the Chinook IPA (also from Northern Brewer) and it is much hoppier and has that delightful floral aroma that you expect from a West Coast IPA. For those of you who thought Tongue Splitter was too hoppy, don't even think about Chinook.

Just ordered the extract kit. In their review section I notice a lot of people suggest adding more DME or other ingredients to boost the sweetness, since the bitterness tends to overpower as it is right now.

I am thinking about adding some biscuit malt to the steeping grains and some honey with the LME.

For those who know better than I, does this sound good? If so, how much grain and honey would you add? If not, what alternatives would you suggest?

Thanks in advance!