new brewer question

[EPS]

I'm a new brewer and i have only really done no boil cooper kits. This time i got a coopers no boil IPA kit and wanted to tweak it a little. The directions say 500g of DME and 300g of dextrose. Instead i added 1kg of light DME and about 200g of dextrose thinking that the orginal recipe was kind of weak for an IPA. Also the kit says just heat the extract up and open the can and pour it in the fermenter. Then pour DME and dextrose in fermenter. Then bring 1gal of water to a boil add that to fermenter mix well then top of with water. So when i boiled that one gallon of water i added 1oz of cascade hop pellets in it and added the 1 kg of Light dme. Then boiled that for about 15-20 min and poured through sanitized strainer just to make sure there wouldn't be any left over hop pellets. Anyway poured that into fermenter with the no boil extract that was all ready in there with the 200g of dextrose. Mixed well and toped of 23 liter batch with spring water. Took hydrometer test got an og of 1.046. So pitched yeast at 24 c and screwed on lid filled airlock with sanitized water (star san) checked for good seal and left alone. Now its fermenting great at like 20-21 c and smells great coming out of airlock. So my question is should i dry hop after about 7 days or when fermentation is complete? Or will this be to hoppy i'v never added any hops to a batch so i don't know the strength of it. Plus these kits are pre hopped but read somewhere adding hops makes them much better. Would dry hopping it as well make it better or to hoppy? And also i'm only using a primary fermenter don't have a secondary to rack into yet. So would dry hopping make this batch better? And if so how is the best way to dry hop this batch and for how long and when should i add the dry hops? And how would i make sure the pellets be sanitary for dry hopping? Any advice would be great. Thanks in advance EPS

 

[beerand420]

Me personally, if I was where you are at in your brewing career, I wouldn't change too many things from brew to brew quite yet as you won't really know which of the multiple things you changed that made the most improvement. Sounds like you've already made a major improvement to your no boil kit, without dry hopping which is quite a bit more advanced than those kits were really intended for... not that it matters, but sounds like you are ready to go to regular extract brewing, or partial mashes even. I'd do that before worrying about dry hopping at all.. See how it turns out compared to previous batches you've done. Dry hop next time if it isn't hoppy enough, but from the changes you've made already, I bet you'll be happy with the results.

 

[jonmohno]

Put some hops in a hop bag and dry hop it after 2 weeks for a week then bottle or primary 3-4 dryhop last week.I think everybody just throws them in(no sanitizing)without problems. Sounds like you may want a kit with steeping grains or a partial mash next,its more fun and said to give an even better beer,your on your way to making your favorite beers. there is nothing wrong with dryhopping a ipa,ever.Maybe play it safe and not use too much.