Adding to pouch brews

[Hoeroa]

Hi from New Zealand.

I'm new to brewing and have made two batches pre mixed American IPA in the form of pouches with dry hops. They both turned out great.

I'm now looking at trying to personalise them abit with adding more hop flavour and increasing the alcohol content.

Is this possible with a pouch brew?

I was wondering if I could either add more malt enhancer or dextrose to up the abv?

I was also thinking about adding some finishing hops before the yeast. Or even upping the dry hops to give it more punch.

As I said I'm really new to this. I know what I like but I'm still figuring out how to get there.

Cheers

 

[bcsund86]

So first i've never actually brewed a pouch kit, but you can add to it. The big thing i would be worried about is if you add more malt you will most likely through off the balance of the beer. If you add more malt (depending on how much) i would also plan on adding more hops. you could add table sugar if you just want the alcohol but no body.

I like the idea of dry hop or finishing hops the most. It will add complexity and aroma, without throwing off the balance of the beer. With dry hops i would throw them in after the beer ferments that way the activity and c02 produced won't blow off any of the delicate aromas.

 

[Hoeroa]

Cheers. Answers most of what I'm after.

So the brew is at 1.034 after yeast is added. I add the dry hops when it's at or below 1.025 then bottle at 1.012

So are you saying I should add dry hops just prior to bottling?

What kind of quantities of say corn sugar should I add to the brew?

 

[RM-MN]

Cheers. Answers most of what I'm after.

So the brew is at 1.034 after yeast is added. I add the dry hops when it's at or below 1.025 then bottle at 1.012

So are you saying I should add dry hops just prior to bottling?

What kind of quantities of say corn sugar should I add to the brew?

Wait until the beer is fully fermented to add dry hops. Your batch may or may not reach the 1.012 so verify it is done by taking two readings a couple days apart, then dry hop for 3 to 7 days before bottling to get the most "punch" from the dry hops. It's OK if your beer stays in the fermenter longer but limit the amount of time that you dry hop.

I wouldn't add any corn sugar to the brew until I had tried it without for this batch. Even then I would probably add dry malt extract if I decided that I really needed a higher amount of alcohol... which most time I don't.

With dry hopping you get great aroma but for a limited time. By the end of the 3rd month in the bottle, most of the aroma will have dissipated.

 

[Hoeroa]

So this will be my third batch of the same brew and it has reached 1.012 each time so I'm confident with that.

That's why I'm wanting to mix it up to see if I can make it better and stronger. I'm not too worried if it doesn't turn out right. It's worth the experiment. As I know I've got this particular brew sorted.

It's a pouch by a down under company called mangrove jacks. It's from their Brewers series. It's a 5.6% brew they call an American ipa. They also do an apa.

Basically you add the pouch to 3 litre of boiled water, add a seperate pack of 1.2 kg malt enhancer, stir it up, add cold water to 23 litre then add the yeast packet that comes with it. After a week add the 50gram dry hop pack,that comes with it, to the brew then a few days later it usually hits the 1.012 and I bottle it up.

This is what I'm wanting to mix up.

 

[FatDragon]

If you want it stronger and malty, you could add another half to full kilo of malt extract. If you want it stronger and drier, you could probably add some sugar, but I'd keep simple sugars (table sugar or corn sugar, for example) to 10% or less of the total sugar weight (so if you want to add ~2% ABV, maybe 700g malt and 300g sugar) so it doesn't get too dry or produce too much 'hot' alcohol flavor.

For hops, since you're not doing a boil, adding dry hops would be the easiest way to personalize the beer. Another 50g will add a nice aromatic punch, preferably of a complementary variety. You'll get diminishing returns as you add more, though - adding 50g of dry hops will make a big difference. Adding another 100g will likely have a smaller impact than the first 50g you added unless you're mixing up the varieties. You can also choose to stagger your dry hop times, such as adding 50g after 3 days and then another 50g at the 1 week point. The hops that go through the tail end of fermentation will contribute in a somewhat different way than the ones that are added after all the yeast has stopped producing alcohol, and the longer dry-hop time will have an impact as well, though not necessarily for the better: many people would advise you to not let any batch of dry hops stay in the beer for more than 7-10 days to avoid grassy flavors, an assertion that I haven't been able to validate in the few beers I've made that had longer dry hop times, including one that was dry hopped with one charge of Lemondrop hops for over a month.