Dry Dock Breakwater Pale Ale from NB

Anyone here brew this kit? Any feedback would be nice. It was gifted to me and if it falls short somewhere I will mod it.

 

I brewed it last month, was more like an IPA, Killed the Keg way too fast

 

Would you brew it again? If not, what would make it better?

 

I am brewing this next weekend. I entered the ingredients into Beertools and it is better suited as an IPA. It has a nice hop bill to it. I can't wait to try it.

 

Yes I will brew it again. While I was expecting a standard Pale Ale, it was a surprisingly refreshing IPA. One note- NB says its ready in 6 weeks, I kegged it after 6 weeks (2 weeks Primary, 4 secondary) and cold conditioned for two.

 

I am brewing this now. It has been in primary since 5/4. Today my hydrometer reads 1.6% alc. I think Something isn't right. Should I transfer it to secondary?

 

Did you account for the temperature of your sample in the hydro reading? Both OG and FG?

 

How long did you dry hop it for? The instructions call for 7 days, but I am thinking longer than that.

 

Temp was 76 degr and measured 1.040 on my Specific Gravity 60deg/60deg. It is now at 65 degr and measures 1.015 ish. Does this make sense?

Expected range of attenuation: 73-77%. So should I wait to place this in secondary still:


Corrected Original Gravity : 1.042 Corrected Final Gravity : 1.016
Alcohol by Weight : 2.73 % Alcohol by Volume : 3.49 %
Total Calories per 12oz. serving : 138 Calories from Alcohol per 12oz. serving : 68
Carbohydrates per 12 oz. serving : 17.4 Calories from Carbs per 12oz. serving : 70
Corrected SG in degrees plato : 9.99 Corrected FG in degrees plato : 3.82
Apparent Attenuation : 0.617 Real Attenuation : 0.506

 

I brewed a very similar kit, basically their Chinook IPA kit with some Citra at the end. That beer is absolutely fantastic, one of my best among 13 brews so far. I'm sure this particular Breakwater kit would turn out pretty good but you may want to add a little gravity or dry hop depending on if you want more ABV or hop aroma, respectively. Adding gravity is easy. Adding hops, well you can add Citra or Chinook and it would be good. 0.5 oz is a little low for a dry hop, but I like hops so that is just me. I did 1.5oz of Citra dry hop in the beer I explained above.

t-royboy, as far as gravity, I'm not sure how you would have got such a low OG compared to the kit saying 1.049. There really is no "efficiency" to consider in extract brewing, either you put the extract in or you didn't. From there the only real variable that affects your OG is how much water that sugar goes into. I pretty much stopped measuring OG on any of my brews because I found I'm always within 0.002 of the expected OG.

This kit for example calls out 3.15 lbs LME and 3 lbs DME. 3.15 pounds LME @ 36 pts/lb is 113 points. 3 pounds DME at 43 pts/lb is 129 points. If you put all the extract in, then you put in 242 points of sugar. If you put that sugar into 5 gallons then that gives you 242/5=48.4, or 1.048 OG.

 

Dont know how I would have missed putting in the DME or LME. Also added enough H2O to make it 5 Gals. Cant imagine that the boil steamed off that much H20 either. Maybe the hydrometer is faulty.

Add Gravity = Add LME or DME (anything else) during boil?

 

Excellent APA. Light and hoppy. Chinook hops give a nice hop flavor. More pine then citrus. Good body and flavor.

 

Bottling this today or tomorrow. Dry hopping for 3-4 days as recommended by the brewing tv episode where they visited dry dock.

 

I have been drinking mine for a month and love it. Will brew this again.

 

I'm doing this in the next few days. I've already got all the ingredients so I didn't order the kit. Should be very close to NB's recipe.
I like hoppy IPA's and this is looking much less hoppier than most of what I like to drink but I also like variety and this looks like it will please others who aren't into very hoppy beers. I love Chinook and haven't done much with Citra so the use of it in dry hopping, however small (1/2 ounce seems very small) sounds interesting. I'll make it as per the recipe and tweak later.
I usually do 3 weeks in a primary then a week or more in the keg before putting it on gas. I'll likely use 05 yeast as I always have some handy.

 

I brewed this kit at the beginning of the summer. It was my first attempt at kegging. This beer was awesome. I don't think it was IPA intensity, but an excellent summer beer. I will definitely make it again. FWIW, I dry hopped for 10 days.

 

So I'm relatively new to homebrewing (only a few extract kits under my belt) ... but I've got the Breakwater Pale Ale kit and plan to brew it this weekend. To accentuate the hops, I was thinking of adding an extra 0.5 oz. of Chinook hops over each of the five additions (so an extra 0.1 oz per addition) and pitching with White Labs 001 yeast. I was also thinking of adding a little honey (0.5-1.0#) at the end of the boil to crispen the body and slightly up the ABV. Does anyone think this would be a good/bad idea? Any experience with modifying this kit?

Thanks!

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a hop head but I'm drinking this now and while this is in no way considered hoppy, the balance for this pale ale is just about perfect.
Honestly, since you are new and never tried this kit before, I strongly suggest you brew it as per instructions. Then, you can decide if you would brew it again and what you might do to tweak it to your taste.

 

I agree...This beer is too good the way it is to start messing with it. I only have 2 left of mine and will probably brew more of it soon.

 

I dry-hopped my version of this yesterday. It is tasting nice from a sample I took then. I was planning on ordering this kit, but when I ended up with an extra 6lbs Pilsen LME, I just bought the hops and specialty grains from the recipe from my local store. I substituted the Pilsen LME for the DME and LME that the kit would have had. So that is what I brewed. The beer is about 5.3%. Also I used dry US-05 instead of any liquid yeasts they were suggesting. Kegging on Tuesday. Hearing all these great reviews is making me thirsty...

 

FYI this kit is on sale (free shipping). Use promo code GOPRO. My extract kit ended up being around $33 shipped to my door (including wyeast 1056, without priming sugar). Pretty good deal, I think. Looking forward to having it during the hot St. Louis summer.

 

I brewed this but used Wyeast 1272. Nice clean yeast did it's job. The .5 oz of Citra for the dry hop is just fine. Pulls through that signature aroma with no issues.


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I've made this several times and always dry hopped. Nice light hoppy ale. Usually use S-05

 

Just brewed this today. I got the extract kit and did as a full boil. Typically for full boil extract would step down the hop additions but decided to leave as is. O.G. was right on target at 1.049. Only thing I am debating is whether to stick with the recipe and use .5oz citra to dry-hop or use the full 1oz. Looking forward to drinking this come July......the reviews sound great.

 

According to Beersmith, doing a full boil and then following the recipe is going to result in 56.6 ibus. Seems like a lot for a pale ale, but I'm going to proceed as is. I love IPAs, but I was trying to brew something with a little more mass appeal for summer bbqs. I'm sure it will be delicious either way. I do wish Beersmith had more choices when it comes to extracts. Didn't have the dry or liquid extracts in the database for this brew. That always frustrates me.