Planning my next brew - Pale ale

[rossscottnz]

Ok so I am slowly gathering stuff for my next lot of beer and as per title I am going to be making a pale ale which involves a kit as I am not quite ready to start playing with hops and straight malt yet. Last brew I did was a coopers real ale kit that I used table sugar instead of dextrose, this time I will be using dextrose but in a small amount so my brew will consist of the following to make a 23 liter batch

1.7 Kg Black Rock pale ale kit
500 grams (1 pound) Light dry malt extract
500 grams dextrose/glucose syrup
1 pack of Mangrove Jack's liberty bell M36 yeast in place of the yeast supplied with the extract kit.

What are your thoughts on the above as these are the ingredients I have bought so far except for the dextrose syrup and would like to use. maybe look at doing a dry hop during or at the end of the fermentation?.

 

[RM-MN]

Ok so I am slowly gathering stuff for my next lot of beer and as per title I am going to be making a pale ale which involves a kit as I am not quite ready to start playing with hops and straight malt yet. Last brew I did was a coopers real ale kit that I used table sugar instead of dextrose, this time I will be using dextrose but in a small amount so my brew will consist of the following to make a 23 liter batch

1.7 Kg Black Rock pale ale kit
500 grams (1 pound) Light dry malt extract
500 grams dextrose/glucose syrup
1 pack of Mangrove Jack's liberty bell M36 yeast in place of the yeast supplied with the extract kit.

What are your thoughts on the above as these are the ingredients I have bought so far except for the dextrose syrup and would like to use. maybe look at doing a dry hop during or at the end of the fermentation?.

You certainly are ready, you just don't know it yet. Making beer is so easy it was discovered hundreds of years ago. Instead of using a hopped malt extract, you can simply use hop pellets in the boil to get the bitterness. That gives you control over how bitter your beer becomes. Go ahead and do a dry hop on this batch. I really like the aroma that comes from a dry hop.

 

[homebrewer_99]

Making beer is so easy it was discovered hundreds of years ago.

6-8 THOUSANDS of years ago.

They found the first beer recipe written in German in/near Kulmbach (not too far from Bamberg) around 800 BC.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Sure, do a dry hop add a little something special. Do you know what bittering hop is in your kit?

 

[rossscottnz]

Sure, do a dry hop add a little something special. Do you know what bittering hop is in your kit?

I don't know what hop was used in the kit as they don't state on the can just says malt hops and water

 

[rossscottnz]

Ok I have been messing about with the brewers friend calculator even though I possibly can not get an accurate result due to not knowing what hops were used in the kit itself the result it gave me was something along the lines of an English pale ale (I was going through the different beer types till I could get all four green ticks on the equation and at least 3 on the SRM to try and find out the style I am brewing) with an OG of 1.042 and expected FG of 1.007, IBU 20-45 and ABV of 4.5%. For dry hopping I have decided on green bullet hops as that is all my local store has in stock to save travelling into the city to get some cascade hops and going by the NZ hops site green bullet is fine for dry hopping.

 

[rossscottnz]

Ok I have put the brew together and taken it out to the fermenting cabinet my OG ended up at 1.040 which is slightly under the predicted one on brewers friend but that is OK, I think I may have messed up a little as I put the DME into the hot water and gave it a good stirring at 60 degrees C while waiting for the kit to warm up in another pot of water. Reason I say I may have messed up is when I came back in from the garage I found DME settling out in the sample jar I used to take the OG with the hydrometer is this normal?. If not lesson learned to do a short boil with the DME only if that is the case.

 

[Sadu]

I scored 2 of those black rock cans in a competition and I toucanned them into a passable IPA. I think they use Pacific Jade or Southern Cross. Sounds like you have already brewed this. So do yourself a favour and chuck in some dry hops once the foam subsides, about 3-5 days before you bottle. 50-100g of NZ Cascade, Motueka or NZ Fuggles won't break the bank and will give you some more hop character. Check out Wagon Brewing for cheap hops if you are willing to stock up a bit. Next time, you want to chuck in the hops at flameout too.
These kits are often using hop extract for bothering, but don't come with much in the way of flavour or aroma hops.

 

[rossscottnz]

I scored 2 of those black rock cans in a competition and I toucanned them into a passable IPA. I think they use Pacific Jade or Southern Cross. Sounds like you have already brewed this. So do yourself a favour and chuck in some dry hops once the foam subsides, about 3-5 days before you bottle. 50-100g of NZ Cascade, Motueka or NZ Fuggles won't break the bank and will give you some more hop character. Check out Wagon Brewing for cheap hops if you are willing to stock up a bit. Next time, you want to chuck in the hops at flameout too.
These kits are often using hop extract for bothering, but don't come with much in the way of flavour or aroma hops.

I got a 100 gram of green bullet hop pellets for $9 which can be used for dry hopping so will give them a try on this brew and steep some hops into it on the next brewing session. Edit: I think next brew I am going to use unhopped malt and do the whole boil process and hop additions instead of relying on a hopped malt kit. I have also taken a look at wagon brewing and their prices are pretty damn good

 

[rossscottnz]

Ok so just a quick update I was not going to say anything on this part in case I got my ass kicked for doing it but yesterday I decided to make some hop tea with 30 grams of the hop pellets and dumped it into the fermenter even though fermentation had started checked again today and fermentation is happily ticking away, the temp control is doing just as I wanted it so the beer temp won't go over 20 degrees C and the heater kicks in at 17 degrees C minimum tolerance you can set on my controller is 1 degree either side even though I would have preferred to be able to set it to no tolerance so minimum temp is set at 18 max temp is set at 19 so the temp controller will turn off the heating pad at 20. I love that hop smell when I open the cabinet to check the temp readings.

 

[rossscottnz]

Did a gravity test this evening while the beer was sitting at 20 degrees C which came in at 1.020 I bought some Triskel and flyer (these are going to be for a dark ale) hop pellets that I found online on clearance due to an overstock and should be arriving tomorrow so I am looking at dry hopping tomorrow with 30 grams (1oz) of the Triskel hop pellets seeing I already added 30 grams (1oz) of the green bullet hops as a hop tea a few days ago. also had a taste of the sample I took I can taste the hops that I added but very mild with the hop flavor so hope this comes out even more during bottle conditioning maybe I could have gone a little bit more but then I do not want to drown out the flavor of the malt either.

 

[rossscottnz]

Did a gravity check last night and it is down to 1.006 from 1.040 and pulled the hop bag out of the brew this morning, if the gravity is still the same when I check again on Thursday night I will be looking at bottling this coming Saturday which will have given the beer 16 days in the fermenter.

 

[rossscottnz]

Beer has been bottled got 65 330ml (11oz) bottles out of this batch which is sitting in the fermenter cupboard while carbing up incase of any bottle bombs which is unlikely. I should have posted a pic of bottling day but i was too eager to get started but i will post a pic of the finished product

 

[Sparkncode]

A lot of bottles to sanitise and fill when using 330s for a 23L batch isn't it. I did my first bottling day with only 330ml bottles a three weeks back.
Normally use 750ml bottles although i went to kegging for most beers as the bottling became tedious after every batch but the last batch was relaxing on a warm sunny day with a beer from a previous batch.

I now only bottle for special beers that i don't want in a keg. Actually makes the days i choose to bottle less daunting. Now its ocasional rather than every few weeks. Nice having both options but kegging does add cost.

 

[rossscottnz]

A lot of bottles to sanitise and fill when using 330s for a 23L batch isn't it. I did my first bottling day with only 330ml bottles a three weeks back.
Normally use 750ml bottles although i went to kegging for most beers as the bottling became tedious after every batch but the last batch was relaxing on a warm sunny day with a beer from a previous batch.

I now only bottle for special beers that i don't want in a keg. Actually makes the days i choose to bottle less daunting. Now its ocasional rather than every few weeks. Nice having both options but kegging does add cost.

I do want to get some kegs but bottling does not bother me plus it was a good chill out time sitting in the garage bottling beer and listening to the axe attack on the iheart radio app.

 

[rossscottnz]

Time to enjoy and best tasting beer i have made so far

 

[Lefou]

Looks like beer to me.