brewer's best hopnog 2017

[GeekBrew]

After completing my first batch of morebeer's american pale ale, i wanted to get something more specific to what i really like. I also wanted to support my local homebrew store, so i stopped by today. I ended up getting a brewer's best hopnog 2017 extract kit. It's a new england style ipa. I cannot find many reviews on the hopnog past the 2012 version. Curious to know if anyone has tried the hopnog 2017 and if not, any feedback on previous versions?

I'll be sure to put up my thoughts as i go through the brewing process!

 

[Pappers_]

Good luck. Not familiar with that beer. NEIPAs are very popular here in Chicago these days - everyone is doing the hazy thing.

 

[GeekBrew]

Yesterday was a rainy day in my neighborhood so I figured I'd use the time to brew the hopnog. They list this kit as being advanced on their scale of difficulty. I am assuming this is because of three factors. The first is what they call their "steep to convert" process. The second being a 20 minute whirlpool addition of hops at 180 degrees after the 60 minute boil. The third being a dry hopping stage.
This is only my second batch so the steep to convert process was interesting, but I don't think it went so bad. They also have you add only half the extract for the full boil, and then second half for the last 10 minutes. After stopping the boil, I was able to get the temperature down to 180 pretty quickly and the temperate held nicely for the 20 minutes of 4oz hop additions.

My OG came in a bit high at 1.060 when they suggest it should be around 1.051 - 1.057. They have you add 8oz corn sugar to the boil. The wort was bitter when I tasted it, but I think that is expected. Safale S-04 was provided with the kit. I added the yeast around 2PM yesterday, and this morning it was already bubbling.

So far so good. Ready for dry hopping. Excited to see how it turns out.

 

[GeekBrew]

so after 5 days in the fermenter, gravity was reading 1.014. I dry hopped in the main fermenter at that point rather than racking to a secondary. Bottled yesterday after a total time in the main fermenter of 3 weeks with a final gravity of 1.010. That should put me around 6.5% abv with an apparent attenuation of 83%. That was with safale US-05 yeast (just realized i put 04 in the previous post). I bottled yesterday using 5oz of priming sugar to the 5 gallon batch. I'm excited to see how this tastes after bottle conditioning for 2 weeks.

 

[dreese1986]

Thought about buying this kit. Can you tell me how it turned out?

 

[Buckeyes1975]

so after 5 days in the fermenter, gravity was reading 1.014. I dry hopped in the main fermenter at that point rather than racking to a secondary. Bottled yesterday after a total time in the main fermenter of 3 weeks with a final gravity of 1.010. That should put me around 6.5% abv with an apparent attenuation of 83%. That was with safale US-05 yeast (just realized i put 04 in the previous post). I bottled yesterday using 5oz of priming sugar to the 5 gallon batch. I'm excited to see how this tastes after bottle conditioning for 2 weeks.

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I also have this kit and ready to brew it. How did it turn out?

 

[bushizell]

Does this kit come with LME's inside? And if so, how many and are they the same kind? I'd like to split this into 2.5gal batches

 

[Buckeyes1975]

Does this kit come with LME's inside? And if so, how many and are they the same kind? I'd like to split this into 2.5gal batches

Yes it has 2 Pilsen LME 3.3 lbs each