partial extract help?

[deanrock18]

Hi guys im taking my baby steps into partial extract, my plan is to use a coopers english bitter kit, 500g dme, some crystal malt, and a couple of flavouring/aroma hops.
Heres where i need advice putting it all together , heres my plan ...

.Steep the grains in 160f for 30mins.

Use this water to then boil the hops for about 10 minutes( hop variety and quantity ideas please??)

Bring off boil then dissolve dme plus coopers kit, gently bring back to boil then flame out and proceed to fermenter...

I would appreciate any advice how much crystal malt? Hops? and generaly is my plan going to be ok?

Cheers guys
Dean

 

[unionrdr]

First & foremost,make sure your grains are crushed. How much water are you planning to steep in?
Dissolve the DME (plain preferably) in the boiling grain wort. You should have at least 2.5-3 gallons at this point for a partial boil. This'll give a good gravity for hop utilization. Being an English Bitter (Cooper's),I'd use East Kent Golding hops at 20 minutes,Fuggle at 10 minutes. You don't want a lot of aroma in an English bitter to be "to style". .5lb of crystal would be ok,maybe 40L.

 

[deanrock18]

Thanks for the reply, due to the size of my pot i can only boil approx 1gal of water? I was unaware that you had to have a gravity to just get flavour and aroma from hops i thought that was just for extracting bitterness? Could you fill me in please thanks again.

 

[OhCrap]

Hi guys im taking my baby steps into partial extract, my plan is to use a coopers english bitter kit, 500g dme, some crystal malt, and a couple of flavouring/aroma hops.
Heres where i need advice putting it all together , heres my plan ...

.Steep the grains in 160f for 30mins.

Use this water to then boil the hops for about 10 minutes( hop variety and quantity ideas please??)

Bring off boil then dissolve dme plus coopers kit, gently bring back to boil then flame out and proceed to fermenter...

I would appreciate any advice how much crystal malt? Hops? and generaly is my plan going to be ok?

Cheers guys
Dean

Is there a can of malt extract with the kit? If so leave this until flame out before adding to the wort so as not to destroy the pre hopped extract. Other wise do as uniondr says as he's done a fair amount of messing with coopers kits (as if also done). Enjoy the brewing it's great craic

 

[deanrock18]

Yeah the lme is a pre hopped can of malt extract (coopers english bitter) i add this off the boil? Do i bring it back to the boil after its added or is there no need cheers.

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah,I've done a lot of different brews with Cooper's cans as a base. And I'm not done with'em yet. Gunna do a partial mash with some of them next. No,do not bring it back to the boil! It'll destroy the brewed-in hop profile. But since 500g is a shade over 1lb (454g),1 gallon pot would still be pushing it. Hop utilization might go down a little. You def need to invest in a 5 gallon (20 quart) stock pot. At this point,it'd make life easier. You might get 3/4 of a gallon in a one gallon pot safely,in other words. You could try it anyway,till you can get a larger BK.

 

[deanrock18]

Thanks for all the advice unionrder, its all helping, i was under the impression that to just add a fresh grain taste and more colour i would be using somewhere in the region of 500g of grains, your suggestion seems quite alot could you please shed some light on this ie. The range of what i could experiment with . Thanks.
Also was thinking maybe 25g of each hop how does that sound cheers

 

[unionrdr]

My recipes for Cooper's [rimarilly use 3lbs of Munton's plain DME with the Cooper's can & a couple ounces of hops. 1 ounce equals 28g. You can look at my recipes for some more ideas on how I brew with them. You could stick with 500g of DME & the grains & Cooper's can. But my suggestion previously would make a better ale.
Steep the grains,add the 500g of DME,& do the hop additions as suggested. It's just that 1G BK that is a bit small for getting good utilization of the hops in enough wort to keep the specific gravity low enough to allow for more complete utilization of the chosen hops. So try it in the one gallon. But it just seems a bit small.

 

[OhCrap]

Thanks for the reply, due to the size of my pot i can only boil approx 1gal of water? I was unaware that you had to have a gravity to just get flavour and aroma from hops i thought that was just for extracting bitterness? Could you fill me in please thanks again.

If you can only boil 1 gallon, then do so and add 1/2 your ingredients, boil another gallon (this should not take too long) add the rest and continue. It's not perfect but you will get better results then if you topped up with water.. Try it and see how it works. You'll have beer at the end. If you like what you get or think that you'll continue then get a bigger kettle and work from there, no matter what you do you WILL have beer