Kit recipe modification ideas

[ShutUpDave]

Hello,

In a couple of days I'm going to be brewing my 2nd batch of beer. It's a kit from Northern Brewer called Block Party Amber Ale and it came with the Brew Share Enjoy starter pack:

https://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/beerkits/BlockParty.pdf

Thing is, I kind of want to turn this into a nice bitter hoppy pale ale.

Can I use the malt that came with the kit to achieve this? If so, what modifications should I make to the recipe? Should I use different yeast? What kind of hops should I use?

I'm fairly new to brewing but I don't want to end up with another bland beer.

 

[tri_clamp_ninja]

You will have to make so many changes that you basically got the kit for no reason. I honestly would suggest brewing it as is so you have a nice drinkable amber then designing a pale ale recipe. If you are not yet comfortable designing a recipe you can always borrow one from here, buy a clone brew book, search google, or just buy a different beer kit next time.

The specialty grains for steeping (c80, special b, and light roasted barley) are all going to drastically darken the beer you are brewing. You could pull them out entirely but then you would remove a lot of what would stop that from tasting "bland" as you put it. Also if you want a "bitter hoppy pale ale" you will need way more then 1 ounce of something like willamette to get there. I highly suggest you just brew this per the sheet and think pale ale for your next batch. You spent (I assume) $35-$50 not including shipping for this kit and the only way you can make it into something close to a hoppy pale ale is by removing over half of the ingredients you already paid for and adding several more you will have to buy.

Want a simple all extract pale ale that you can give to anyone from a bud light drinker to a craft enthusiast?

1lb per gallon Briess Pilsen DME
2.5grams per gallon 12%+ AA CTZ hop pellets @ 60 mins
1.5grams per gallon 12%+ AA CTZ hop pellets @ 30 mins
Yeast of preference. I generally prefer an english ale strain to help with the thin body you usually get from just extract.
This is assuming you can do a full volume boil...you can do so right? If you don't have a kettle that allows you to boil your full volume of wort then I'm sorry but your beer will never taste good. If that is the case I highly suggest you switch focus to obtaining a kettle that is in the 8-10 gallon range (for a 5 gallon batch). If you have that, great! Run the above recipe.

 

[ShutUpDave]

You will have to make so many changes that you basically got the kit for no reason. I honestly would suggest brewing it as is so you have a nice drinkable amber then designing a pale ale recipe. If you are not yet comfortable designing a recipe you can always borrow one from here, buy a clone brew book, search google, or just buy a different beer kit next time.

The specialty grains for steeping (c80, special b, and light roasted barley) are all going to drastically darken the beer you are brewing. You could pull them out entirely but then you would remove a lot of what would stop that from tasting "bland" as you put it. Also if you want a "bitter hoppy pale ale" you will need way more then 1 ounce of something like willamette to get there. I highly suggest you just brew this per the sheet and think pale ale for your next batch. You spent (I assume) $35-$50 not including shipping for this kit and the only way you can make it into something close to a hoppy pale ale is by removing over half of the ingredients you already paid for and adding several more you will have to buy.

Want a simple all extract pale ale that you can give to anyone from a bud light drinker to a craft enthusiast?

1lb per gallon Briess Pilsen DME
2.5grams per gallon 12%+ AA CTZ hop pellets @ 60 mins
1.5grams per gallon 12%+ AA CTZ hop pellets @ 30 mins
Yeast of preference. I generally prefer an english ale strain to help with the thin body you usually get from just extract.
This is assuming you can do a full volume boil...you can do so right? If you don't have a kettle that allows you to boil your full volume of wort then I'm sorry but your beer will never taste good. If that is the case I highly suggest you switch focus to obtaining a kettle that is in the 8-10 gallon range (for a 5 gallon batch). If you have that, great! Run the above recipe.

Thanks!

It came with this starter equipment so I didn't buy this recipe specifically, but I will go ahead and brew it as-is.

 

[kh54s10]

I agree that trying to turn that Amber beer into a pale ale is not really workable.

If you want to experiment with making a bitter hoppy pale ale from a kit you will need to start with a pale ale. To make it bitter add a little more of the bittering hop (60 min? addition). To add hop flavor and aroma add some more of the late addition hops.

You could use an online recipe builder and enter the ingredients do determine what the changes would do.

 

[tri_clamp_ninja]

Something you can do is brew the kit as the sheet states except add some more hops! Hoppy amber ales are actually pretty nice as long as you keep it on balance. Try this: buy 2 more oz of willamette hops, brew the kit as the instructions state except add 1 more oz to the 60 min addition (2 oz in total) then add the other 1oz you bought at 30 mins.

So:
2oz willamette @ 60
1oz willamette @ 30

Everything else exactly the same

 

[ShutUpDave]

Something you can do is brew the kit as the sheet states except add some more hops! Hoppy amber ales are actually pretty nice as long as you keep it on balance. Try this: buy 2 more oz of willamette hops, brew the kit as the instructions state except add 1 more oz to the 60 min addition (2 oz in total) then add the other 1oz you bought at 30 mins.

So:
2oz willamette @ 60
1oz willamette @ 30

Everything else exactly the same

Awesome, I will try this!