Branching out

[jerrylotto]

Not to mention that there are a lot more tried and true recipes out there than there are kits. You don't have to go from kit to custom, Try out some the detailed recipes on this forum in HomeBrewTalk.com - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Community.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Ok. That’s makes prefect sense. Sounds pretty straight forward too. This definitely sounds like my next logical step, rather than try to tweak a ready made kit just make my own Bet the quality of beer is much improved too from the shelve bought ready made pre hopped extract?

The MJ kits are good, probably the best hopped extract kits I've tried. By making an extract beer, steeping grains and using hops, you should improve on an MJ kit though. The steeping grains provide fresh hop aroma and you can choose whatever hops you want and use as many hops as you like. It's much more rewarding and you should get better beer. You certainly will with practice.

 

[Snuffy]

Thanks for the reply and advise I have looked at those online Calculators before by they all way over my head. Seemed more aimed at gain brews with steeping times and boil times etc. I just open a can, Pour it in the fermenter, add hot water to 23 litres and it’s done

Ohhh. Pre-hopped extract.

 

[twos_and_zeros]

Thanks for the reply and advise I have looked at those online Calculators before by they all way over my head. Seemed more aimed at gain brews with steeping times and boil times etc. I just open a can, Pour it in the fermenter, add hot water to 23 litres and it’s done

I only recently started brewing, so I have very little experience to draw upon. Take what I say with a massive grain of salt.

I agree the calculators can appear very complicated when you first start looking at them. But once you've fiddled around with ingredients for a while they're just as complicated.

Start off with just adjusting the ingredients while watching the SG and FG, the IBUs, and the BU/GU ratio. Since you're concentrating on extract brewing for now, you don't really need to worry about steeping times, efficiency, mash temp, etc. The best thing about using extract (either liquid or dry) is that the efficiency is well known. It's difficult to mess it up... in fact, I'm not sure that you can without diluting it with more water than is called for in a recipe.

Getting away from the liquid extract that's already hopped is probably the biggest change you can make to improve your craft. It's better to start with a blank slate, even using extract, than to take what someone else has already partially started for you. Then you can really branch out and customize the recipe to your liking.

Extract brewing can still be extremely enjoyable. As has been suggested already in this thread, it's possible to find recipes from kits and other resources that result in great beers. Personally, I used some well rated kits or recipes, plugged them into online calculators and then substituted the base malts for extract until the numbers came out fairly close. I have no way of knowing whether what I made was close to what the original recipe intended, but the beers were fantastic. I used this forum, Brewer's Friend recipes, and recipe kits that specified their ingredients to draw from. I'm in the US and many of the suppliers of kits are specific about what their ingredients are.

Having also just recently joined this hobby I don't have much to offer, except that I've made some bad beer. I've poured out a few bottles (experimenting with one gallon recipes, thankfully). I don't think that trying something new and failing is a bad thing by any means. Every batch that doesn't come out exactly as you wanted is an opportunity to learn something about your process and improve upon it. Or I keep telling myself.

 

[jerrylotto]

That’s a very good point. Not that fussed about getting all the way to 9%. That’s the ABV of the supermarket brew dog beer Hazy Jane that I think they are trying to imamate with the Mangroves juicy IPA Kit. I would just like the Mangroves juicy IPA Kit ( that tastes like Hazy Jane ) to have a little more kick to it like the actual Hazy Jane. If I could get it to 6-7 ABV without changing the favour I’d be happy.

For a 5 gal recipe, 0.75 lb of dextrose should add about 14 points to your OG. Remove your wort from heat and stir in the dextrose until it is dissolved, then return it to the stove and boil for at least 5 min more.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Remove your wort from heat and stir in the dextrose until it is dissolved, then return it to the stove and boil for at least 5 min more.

There's a variation on this approach that @D.B.Moody talks about briefly in the "I brewed a favorite recipe today" thread in the "Extract Brewing" forum. The strength of this approach is that one knows that the extract dissolved or it's still on the bottom of the 2nd kettle - so pretty close to zero chance of scorching.

 

[wesza]

Thanks to all that replied. Great info and a lot to take forward