Enhancing a free NB kit

[sdenue57]

Newb here. So this will be my first attempt at brewing my own beer. I bought a starter kit from NB, got the free American Wheat kit with it. I like a good Pale Ale, IPA, and White IPAs(Thank You SN, LOL). So I also bought some extra hops, Citra, and Mosaic, and a smack pack of Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale yeast. The kit came with Centennial and Williamette hops, and Safale US-05 dry yeast. I also bought a Yeast Starter kit that came with some LME. I'm trying to make this kit stronger(ABV), and hoppier. Any help would be appreciated. Looking to get started in 2-3 days. Thanx!!!

 

[Hello]

You can double the 60 minute hop addition and also add more DME or LME. Personally, I'd brew as is until I got used to the process though.

 

[sdenue57]

Just not sure the kit is the type of beer I like. Words like "spritzy" make me think I'll be disappointed with it

 

[sdenue57]

So this is what the final product looks like. Final recipe is as follows:
6 lbs Wheat LME
1 lb Light DME

Hops:
60 min- 1 oz Centennial
45 min- 1/2 oz Citra
30 min- 1/2 oz Citra
15 min- 1/2 oz Willamette
Flameout- 1/2 oz Willamette
150F- 1/2 oz Mosaic
OG- 1.060

Made rookie mistake of pouring trub into primary :-(
Let it set for 1 week
Moved to secondary and added 1/2 oz Mosaic to dry hop
Let it set for 2 weeks in secondary
FG- 1.010
Bottled and conditioned for 2 weeks

Quite bitter, but not too much for me
I think it would've turned out much better had I not poured the trub into the
primary
Overall, not too bad for my first batch of beer

 

[nhindian]

Trub in primary isn't a big deal, at least in terms of flavor.

I'd recommend not using a secondary unless you are doing extended aging (> 1 or 2 months)

I'd also recommend leaving in primary for a bit longer. Let the gravity stabilize more and allows the yeast to clean up after itself after fermentation.

Look into late additions for malt extract. There's no need to boil it for the full hour. When I was doing extract I'd add most of mine with around 10 minutes left, especially LME.

Anyways good job! Keep some bottles on hand to see how it changes. And if you make it again later on down the road when your process is more finely tuned, compare and contrast.

 

[Queequeg]

Yeah the trub is not a big issue. I doubt that why your disappointed.

If anything I would say you moved it off the yeast cake too soon and dry hopped too long.

Most of the time you don't need to do a secondary, so just keep it in the primary for 3 weeks and dry hop 3-5 days before racking.

 

[sdenue57]

Well actually the only reason I moved it to a secondary was because of the trub. Didn't originally plan on a secondary on this batch, but I was worried it would be over-the-top bitter. Just about everyone who has tried it has liked it though, so I guess it's not too bad. I like it regardless. Gonna make another batch of it (per request, lol), and I'll try your suggestions. Thanks for the feedback!!

 

[jekeane]

to bad you ruined a beer by putting it in that glass...

 

[sdenue57]

to bad you ruined a beer by putting it in that glass...

Lol, this must be coming from a Red Sox fan

 

[hlm123]

The best enhancement is good brewing practice. In fact that's the only real enhancement until you've carefully tested any recipe changes. My most memorable batches have been the ones where I went off the rails with the recipe for the sake of "experimentation", but the point is that your audience is not likely to agree that these were your best efforts. It takes more to get to that point.

 

[peterj]

Like others have said transferring the trub to the fermenter is not a problem at all. In fact a member here, brulosopher, just did an experiment and found that when he intentionally transferred as much trub as possible to one half of a 10 gallon batch, that half actually came out clearer. And it was a toss up for which beer people like the taste of better, but there wasn't much flavor difference between the two. Here's the link to that: http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/02/the-great-trub-exbeeriment-results-are-in/.

Also I just wanted to comment on your hop schedule. In my opinion any hop addition before about 20 or 30 minutes isn't going to give you much of anything. With a 45 minute addition you're going to boil off most all of the flavor and aroma. So it ends up just adding IBUs, which you can do more efficiently at 60 minutes with a hop that you don't care as much about the flavor. At 30 minutes you're probably getting some flavor contribution but in my opinion it's still a wasted addition, at least for very hoppy styles like what you are going for. For hoppy beers I prefer to use a bittering hop addition at 60 minutes and then add the rest of my hops in the last 15 minutes of the boil. Sometimes I'll add them all at flameout and do a whirlpool/hopstand for about 30 minutes at varying temperatures. Just my 2 cents.