2nd ever brew. Best ipa?

[phillsmit]

My first brew is just about to be bottled and i'm about to start my second brew. I fancy doing an ipa kit. I want to keep it simple for the time being and was thinking about using the coopers ipa kit as my last kit was coopers and was very easy. Has anyone had good results from this kit and/or can you suggest the best ipa kit to use. We are going to be going on a large family holiday and my beer is going up against 2 other home brews so i want mine to be good. thanks in advance.

 

[shearclass]

I did this kit and mine was awful. I wonder if there was some sort of minor infection, or if i did something wong.

If you want to ensure you beat or at least match some other home brewers (assuming they are also kit brewers) then you should splash out on a premium kit, which contains 2 tins of the hopped malt extract.

They are without doubt worth the extra cost. I can recommend Brupaks Birkby Bitter, or Fixby Gold, or Munton's Imperial Stout.

 

[artiums_enteri]

For best competition results here you go:

10 pounds pale malt extract (unhopped)

1 pound crystal 60L

4 oz chinook hops for 60 min
3 oz Amarillo hops for 30 min
3 oz cascade hops for 1 min
3 oz cascade hops dry hop after 14 days

Wyeast 1056 with 2L starter.

That is a good IPA recipe that a beginner should be able to manage with no problem, and you still have control over the process a bit instead of relying on a maltster to create a hop profile for you.

Cheers

 

[adrianmole72]

That sounds like a good recipe, but from what I read in the first post, phillsmit is more than likely a kit brewer at the moment.

 

[Hollow Legs]

Anyway as you are a kit brewer (as am I) and will probably not be going down the AG route for your second brew, I recommend to make a premium kit (two cans) too, I made a Coopers IPA a couple of months ago and still have a few bottles left but it was very dark and tasted like a bitter to me, not what I was expecting.

A brew I keep making is Coopers Draught with Brew enhancer instead of sugar, this is a guest ale as I usually brew lager.


good luck :thumb:

 

[phillsmit]

thanks everyone the brupacks look good to me. Anyone tried the linthweight or the colne vally bitter.

 

[pittsy]

If you want to use a kit then i would not bother at all with sugar or dextrose or brew enhancer (thats just mainly sugar too )just get some spray dried malt and put that in gram for gram instead it will help give a fuller flavour and help get rid of that thin cider like taste , you could even throw some hops into your FV maybe 20g just chuck em in , maybe go for a medium or pale dried malt , it will also help with the colour of your brew , i used this on my 2nd brew its very easy :thumb:

 

[puravida]

I'm not familiar with the kits so much but it's really easy to add some real hops into the process.
Providing the base kit is half decent it'll knock the spots off the other contenders.

Try and get hold of a 100g pack of cascade hops and a small mesh bag - should cost you £3-£4 tops.

If your kit involves boiling any of the liquids then you can add 5-10g of the hops at 20 min intervals and then a final addition as you stop boiling.

If not, as pittsy says you can add them into your bucket as the beer ferments or you add some to some hot (but not boiling water) and allow it to steep for half an hour then put the lot into the bucket. 20-30g would be good for this.

 

[phillsmit]

Would you also add the hops to a 2 can kit?

 

[puravida]

I certainly would.

You just need to watch the kit does not have hop extract already mixed in with the malt.
If this is the case then there's no need to add hops whilst you are boiling everything - this will just make it too bitter.
Hops you add to the bucket directly will not contribute any bitterness, they'll just give the a lovely fresh hop aroma.

Also - you could swap the yeast pack that comes with the kit for a 'premium' yeast like a Safale S-04 which is widely available online and in homebrew shops. Little blue packet.

Then the next step to pep up a kit will be to steep some speciality grains too :thumb:

Have a look at the most recent basic brewing video - "Doctoring Mr. Beer"
http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=video

they talk you through how to make the most of a kit beer with a few tweaks including using real hops, a better yeast and steeping some grains. Any one of these actions will improve a kit beer.

 

[pondlife]

I'm on my 3rd Coopers Traditional IPA kit at the moment and I can honestly say that the end-product from the 1st 2 brews was/is excellent. Without doubt, the best beer I have produced so far.

My first 2 brews consisted of 1 x 1.5kg can of Cooper’s Traditional IPA Kit, 11.5g sachet of Safale US-05 yeast, 1.5kg of Cooper’s Light Malt Extract & 1kg Ritchie’s Beer Kit Enhancer. I gave these beers 14 days secondary fermentation and only a further 28 days conditioning time before I started to drink them and they both fairly knocked my socks off! The brew turned out wonderfully clear with a lovely chestnut colour and a hard-packed sediment in the bottle. The 2nd brew is certainly the best of the two.

For my third brew, I've used the supplied 7g sachet of yeast and Coopers own Beerkit Enhancer 2 as this was the only thing I could my my hands on at the time.

The 1st brew took 16 days to ferment out while the 2nd took 22 days. The current brew is still going strong after 17 days and the lid of the FV is as strongly domed as ever. I'm putting the different durations down to the ambient temperatures in the house over the winter.

My only word of warning is that all 3 brews escaped the confines of my 23 litre FVs and frothed over for about 3 days! I'm now thinking about a 33 litre FV for my 23 litre brews.

I know that the addition of the liquid malt extract and beer kit enhancers push the price up, but the quality of the end-product is way above anything I have made in the past using just 1 can and granulated sugar.

 

[andyd]

I made the Coopers IPA a couple of months ago and was impressed by it. I added 1Kg of pale spraymalt and just a few hundred grams of sugar to get the OG up to the mid 1040s.

If I made it again I would go for 1.5Kg of spraymalt and as recommended by puravida I would add some additional hops, either dry-hopped or as a hop tea (just boil the hops in a few litres of water for 10 mins maybe). This will definitely improve the aroma/flavour.

 

[shearclass]

If I made it again I would go for 1.5Kg of spraymalt

Do you thin kthis would be better than buyign a premium kit? If you are buying this much spraymalt, plus hops, then your single kit will actually cost more than a premium kit.

 

[marco491]

Did the Coopers IPA a few months back, but used a recipe from the Coopers website and it came out far too sweet and dark for my taste. Ok in small glasses at Christmas but couldn't wait to free up the cornie to be honest.

To be fair, this wasn't the recommended recipe so I'll give it another go sometime when I've got a couple of extra cornies for experimental purposes :-)

 

[andyd]

It would be a similar cost to a two can kit, that's true. But I would consider adding extra hops for a two can kit as well.

I quite like the flexibility of using the Coopers kits and then embellishing them, not just with spraymalt but you can try other additions too. I made a Dark Ale with dark spraymalt, some chocolate malt and Fuggles hops and it is undoubtedly the best beer I have ever made (so far :)).

I also had a stuck fermentation problem with one of the two can premium kits which has also coloured my opinion. If I was brewing the latter again I would definitely upgrade my yeast (more cost). The yeast that comes with the Coopers kits seems to do much better (at least with the two kits I've made).

 

[shearclass]

For best competition results here you go:

10 pounds pale malt extract (unhopped)

1 pound crystal 60L

4 oz chinook hops for 60 min
3 oz Amarillo hops for 30 min
3 oz cascade hops for 1 min
3 oz cascade hops dry hop after 14 days

Wyeast 1056 with 2L starter.

That is a good IPA recipe that a beginner should be able to manage with no problem, and you still have control over the process a bit instead of relying on a maltster to create a hop profile for you.

I have only brewed kits to date, but i am going to make some extract/partial mash brews shortly. I have a couple of kits to use up that i got for christmas, then i am going to start on extract. I think i might use this recipe, but please could you explain to a novice what you mean by "1 pound crystal 60L"?

I know of crystal malt, but was does '60L' mean?

Cheers

 

[artiums_enteri]

When you start buying specialty grains they are designated by color of the malt. All the barley malts start out 2 row, but the maltster will toast them to a certain lovibond (L) to designate their color. The darker the malt the darker the lovibond. I think black patent is around 160L.

Since in the above recipe the purpose of the grain is not to derive any fermentable sugars, but rather get the sweet carmel toastiness and the deep rich copper color, I found the 60L worked the best. This is not a partial mash, but rather you are simply steeping the grains in the wort to get that desired outcome. This is usually done by gently cracking the grains by rolling over them with a rolling pin and wrapping them up in a muslin bag like a giant tea bag. Then just like a tea bag they get dipped and steeped in the wort. This gives you a lot more control over flavor and color than just relying on extract. It also doesn't require the added steps of partial mashing since your fermentable sugars all come from the extract.

Specialty grains don't add much fermentable sugars to a wort being that the enzymes become compromised and the sugars become too complex to extract during the toasting process. They do add complexity, flavor, and color to the wort though. The darker the malts, the less viable sugar will be extracted even during an all grain brew.

Hope that helped.

 

[shearclass]

Thanks for your reply, and for explaing about lovibond.

I was under the impression that steeping grains for colour and flavour was partial mash. If that is not the case and partial mash invovles extracting sugars, please can you let me know what partial mash is, compared to full mash?

I am new to home brewing, and have only used kits so far, so please excuse my ignorance. I intend on doing my first extract (or partial mash?) in Feb or March, once I have used up a couple of kits I got for Christmas.

 

[Essex_Lad]

thanks everyone the brupacks look good to me. Anyone tried the linthweight or the colne vally bitter.

Hi,

I have done two brews of colne vally and I can say its one of the best brews I have done, the first was put into a Keg which I hammered in a couple of weeks and the second has been in bottles for around two months now.

Two brews that I can fully recommend are colne vally and Nelsons Revenge.

Even the guy in my LHBS said the Colne Vally is one of the best kits available and I make him right :drink:

 

[artiums_enteri]

Sorry for the late reply, but we've been quite busy with work and getting things finished in the brewery.

When you make a partial mash or mini mash beer you are substituting some of the sugars that come from malt extract with sugars from 2 row barley. Mini mash is great to get your feet wet, but not drop a bunch of money on equipment you might not use ever again.

Normally partial mash recipes will come with a smaller amount of extract and a larger portion of grain; not just specialty grain but two row. The instructions will walk the brewer through holding those grains at a specific temp for a pre-determined time. It's important these are followed or the brewer could easily destroy the enzymes needed to convert the complex sugars to simple sugars, and the gravity and color of the beer might be way off.

Kits with just steeping grains have a larger amount of malt extract, but a small amount of grains that get steeped like a large tea bag to add color and flavor to the beer.