Help save a brew

[SheffieldBrew]

Hi there,

I'm hoping for some rescue recipe advice.

I'm normally a all grain brewer but due to work/parenting/lockdown I ordered some kits to keep myself stocked until I had a chance to brew all grain again.

The brew that I was putting on was a 60IBU DIPA but stupidly I didn't check the bag contents before starting brewing. I only noticed too late that they hadn't included the bittering hop extract and there weren't really many hops in the kit for a DIPA.

I got in touch with the supplier who has been less than helpful (and which is why they aren't getting named here) as they said it was fine and the LME was pre-hopped but this didn't hold any water as they'd sent the exact same LME (with the exact same product code etc) for a 30 IBU Blonde Ale too and they've been ignoring contact since then.

It has been in the fermenter for a couple of weeks now and I obviously don't want to pour it away but as some ingredients were missing I'm not sure if the 50 (ish) grams of hops in the bag is actually the Columbus that it's supposed to be.

I'm resigned to the fact that I'm stuck at about 30 IBU. In terms of what's in there, there's 3KG of the pre-hopped LME (which is there I'm guessing that the 30 IBU comes from as that's what the Blonde Ale recipe has) as well as 1Kg of Dextrose monohydrate so it'll be about 6% but is there anything I can do with my stock of hops (or ordering some) in the dry hop as I'm really not sure that a flavour profile of a Blonde Ale is going to compliment the 6% IPA strength.

In stock I've got a surprising amount of odds and ends:

A load of Mosaic (I like it and have it for a future brew already in)

and then probably between 20g and 50g each of

Challenger
Cascade
Centennial
Nelson Sauvin
Citra
Amarillo

From leftovers (which I realise I should have done something with before now)

Any help would be appreciated, I figured that a bunch of dry hopping might move it more towards the more aromatic modern IPAs but I've not got the time to experiment (hence why I was going with a kit in the first place).

I also get that this might just be guesswork from here

Thanks

R

 

[MrRook]

If they are being less than helpful they should be named, to warn others.

 

[Clint]

Well without knowing exactly what your hops are and if you sure you're missing the bittering addition and by the packaging you think you're at 30ibu all is not lost I recon!!
I'm sure you could up the IBU by adding a boiled solution of some of your hop stock...I don't know about this! What I'd do is pick your favourite hops and give it a nice dry hop...including your kit pellets. I'm sure the beer will be drinkable. Tell the supplier you're going to name and shame them on this forum that'll shift em...

 

[Leon103]

You could add some hops to boiled water to get more bitterness.

 

[MyQul]

A dry hop wont add any bittering. What you could do is make a a second very bitter brew and blend them.

Also people will want to know who this company are because I dont think anyone else would like to go through the shoddy customer service you have

 

[dwhite60]

Really, 30 ibu for and IPA might be low but not unreasonable, even for a DIPA.

If the gravity finished really low that'll make is seem more bitter too.

I'd let it ride and live with it. You've learned something. Sometimes in trying to fix something we actually make it worse.

 

[An Ankoù]

Can you get hold of any isomerised hop extract from your local homebrew store? If not, just go with it and see whether you like the beer. There's no question of pouring it away- it just wont be as bitter as you'd wanted but when you've done the dry hop bit, with the hops supplied, it'll be just as flavoursome- just not so bitter.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

The kit might actually be ok but if you want to change to something more like an IPA and if you have enough of it I’d go Citra but maybe not use the Columbus.

 

[Clint]

Tell us who the rubbish customer service provider is ...

 

[SheffieldBrew]

Thanks for all of the responses guys,

To try and answer all of the questions in one post.

I will name and shame if it doesn't get sorted but these are tricky times for us all and I'm trying to give them a chance to do the right thing. I will update you either way.

I realise that 30 IBU isn't that low but when it's advertised as 60 IBU all you know you've got is not what you ordered.

I can get isomerised hop extract but have no idea if this will mix properly if I chuck it in post-fermentation or if I'll just had a bland keg and a pint of something that'll spoil my evening. Have you done this before? I guess it's pretty much the same as boiling some hops and then adding that, so long as I give it time for Brownian motion to get everything nicely distributed then it'll work(?)

I really like both Amarillo and Mosaic so I might try a dry hop based on those guys as well

I appreciate all of the help

R

 

[Clint]

I'm sure it'll be fine!

 

[An Ankoù]

Might be a plan to divide it up into, say, quarters and try a different fix with three different quarters and doing nothing with the last one. Just a thought.

 

[Leon103]

A dry hop wont add any bittering. What you could do is make a a second very bitter brew and blend them.

Also people will want to know who this company are because I dont think anyone else would like to go through the shoddy customer service you have

Not sure why my post edited to boiled. I wrote boiling. So like a brew but using some water instead of wort.

 

[Brew_DD2]

I would just dry hop the **** out of it. You won't get measurable IBUs, but you will get more bitterness, alongside a whole lot more flavour.

 

[Harbey]

I'd take a sample and check what it's tasting like at this point. It should have finished fermenting by now so it'll give you a decent idea. Dry hopping with some of your hop stock will obviously add more aroma and flavour if needed. I've never tried doing the additional bittering via a hop tea type approach, but I doubt it'll do any harm. I wonder if you could bottle half, then add a bittering hop tea to the other half so as to compare?

 

[Rodcx500z]

I would just go with it, might be a good pint

 

[SheffieldBrew]

So, what I reckon I'm going to do is make a hop tea with 1l of water boiling for an hour with 13g Citra 14.5% AA in Beersmith reckons this will give me about another 30 IBU.

I'll also do a dry hop with some Mosaic and more Citra.

I'll let you know how it pans out.

On the other point in the post, the supplier finally responded and refunded completely the cost of that kit (which was more than I expected). So, it took few weeks of me chasing, them ignoring and then me threatening with going to the payment provider but they did the right thing in the end.

Given that we're in particularly difficult times at the moment I'm leaning towards not naming them, unless the overwhelming opinion is that you guys need to be warned?

Thanks again for all of your help

R

 

[Clint]

Well it's a result on getting the supplier to respond suitably.

 

[SheffieldBrew]

I'm a grumpy git who has a problem that I often argue principle rather than letting things slide pragmatically.

I have been known to quote clauses of the consumer rights act or GDPR regulations at people who I don't think are behaving appropriately.

If they hadn't refunded or sent the missing ingredients I would have just had the payment provider refund me and they could have taken me to court to try and get a partial payment but I was pretty sure that I would be more stubborn that they would and that chasing me would cost a lot of time and money and would only end up in the position that I was trying to get to in the first place (i.e. fair)

I'm confident that most business owners understand that pretty much all of the power in a commercial dynamic goes to whoever is actually holding the money at a given point and are prepared to fob people off in the expectation that a significant proportion will write off their loss as not worth the hassle.

I'm too prepared to go through hassle if I feel things are unfair. It means that I rant at a lot of folks and it probably frustrates my wife but it's very rare that we don't get what we have paid for

R