Suggestion for 2nd brew

[emmever]

Hello all,

In the coming weeks (as soon as the temperature will drop as I live in Italy) I will start my second brew.
I would like to make an IPA from a kit (I am considering the Brewferm English IPA for a 12l batch).

I would like to try the dry hopping method. What is the right amount of hops to be added for a 12l IPA batch?
Does the hop need to be sanitized somehow bedore adding it to the fermenting vessel?

Second question: I read that using malt extract instead of sugar enhance the taste of beer. Is this true in your experience? How do I choose the proper malt extract for the different beer styles?

They are probably newbie questions, but I am a newbie

 

[jof]

Hmm. That's a 20l kit.
If you only want 12l from it you will need to mess around splitting the batch.
The thing with these kits is that the hops are added to the extract for you.
Adding less water will mean the flavour will be more bitter and you would need to adjust any sugar you add too.

So on to questions:
1) dry hopping with commercial vac packed hops should be ok, as the commercial process should have preserved the hops.

2) Sugar will ferment, but it adds nothing to the beer, so you can end up with a thin watery beer.
You can buy 'beer enhancer' which is a mix of brewing sugar and dried malt extract as a 1/2 way product.
Personally I used to use just the dried malt extract, as you can get it in different colours from extra pale to dark depending on the beer style you are making.
You can also get cans of malt extract - like the stuff in the homebrew kits, but without any hops added.

If you are doing small batches and have plenty of free time, there is a thread on how to make simple all grain using kitchen cooker that might be a worth looking at.

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/have-a-go-at-simple-ag.51779/

 

[Mash Monster]

Hmm. That's a 20l kit.
If you only want 12l from it you will need to mess around splitting the batch.
The thing with these kits is that the hops are added to the extract for you.
Adding less water will mean the flavour will be more bitter and you would need to adjust any sugar you add too.

So on to questions:
1) dry hopping with commercial vac packed hops should be ok, as the commercial process should have preserved the hops.

2) Sugar will ferment, but it adds nothing to the beer, so you can end up with a thin watery beer.
You can buy 'beer enhancer' which is a mix of brewing sugar and dried malt extract as a 1/2 way product.
Personally I used to use just the dried malt extract, as you can get it in different colours from extra pale to dark depending on the beer style you are making.
You can also get cans of malt extract - like the stuff in the homebrew kits, but without any hops added.

If you are doing small batches and have plenty of free time, there is a thread on how to make simple all grain using kitchen cooker that might be a worth looking at.

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/have-a-go-at-simple-ag.51779/

I think that Brewferm do the IPA in a 12L as well as the usual 20L so no faffing with splitting the batch. If it was me I would brew as intended and as Jof suggest replace the sugar with light Dry Malt Extract or Enhancer. As to adding hops, again as the kit is already hopped I would see what it tasted like and if you would like it more hop forward brew if again and experiment. I suppose you could even taste the beer at terminal gravity and if it wasn’t hoppy enough for you, you could dry hop for a couple of days before packaging. One point to remember is that hops both leaf and pellet absorb some of the beer and therefore you will loose a percentage of your 12L batch . Also the beer will take longer to drop clear. The next decision is what hops and how much this is a matter of personal taste, depending on what flavour profile you are trying to achieve

 

[emmever]

Thanks for ths suggestions.
I will check the batch size of the kit, I don't want to split the batch (sounds way too complex for me...)

I will probably skip dry hopping for the moment, see how it is coming out and maybe try something different next time

 

[emmever]

Another question.
If I would like to obtain a lower ABV % can I simply reduce the sugar added?
Considering a 12l batch, how much is the delta in ABV % if I reduce the sugar from 500g to 400g?

 

[Mash Monster]

This is a tricky one I’m sure there are sugar to ABV calculators out there but it’s not something I’ve personally done.
I suspect by reducing the sugar to 400g will only effect the final strength of the beer marginally as this is a 6.5% kit it would probably drop to around the 6% mark this guess is based on my all grain brewing but may well be way off for extract kits.
You could always brew long in as much as increase the water volume to say 15L which would give you nearer 5.3-5.5 % ABV.
Not a lot of help I know but it’s my best guess

 

[The Baron]

There are rough calculators out there and I am sure somebody will pop up with one.
But what I do is use a recipe calculator, you can do this by making a simple recipe to yur ABV using the factors you have and using just sugar to get to the correct ABV then reduce it to the ABV you want and it will tell you how much to use. This is only a guide and I would set my EFF at 70% as that is a rough average.
Not exact but will get you there or there abouts

 

[Twostage]

Another question.
If I would like to obtain a lower ABV % can I simply reduce the sugar added?
Considering a 12l batch, how much is the delta in ABV % if I reduce the sugar from 500g to 400g?

Logic is telling me the delta would be 1/5 as you are using 4/5 of the sugar.

So if it was supposed to be 5% ABV it would go down to 4% all things being equal.

 

[Twostage]

Logic is telling me the delta would be 1/5 as you are using 4/5 of the sugar.

So if it was supposed to be 5% ABV it would go down to 4% all things being equal.

No, that's rubbish as there are other fermentables in there.

 

[Twostage]

Try again. 28 grams of sugar gives you 1 gravity point in 10 litres so 500 grams in 12 litres gives you 500/28/1.2. 400 gives you 400/28/1.2. Which are roughly 15 and 12. So if the original gravity was going to be say 1.050 with 500g it would go down to 1.047 if you only used 400g. Which doesn't sound like much difference.

 

[emmever]

Try again. 28 grams of sugar gives you 1 gravity point in 10 litres so 500 grams in 12 litres gives you 500/28/1.2. 400 gives you 400/28/1.2. Which are roughly 15 and 12. So if the original gravity was going to be say 1.050 with 500g it would go down to 1.047 if you only used 400g. Which doesn't sound like much difference.

Thank you for sharing the formula (I was looking for a quantitative relation like that).
So, according to the kit instruction initial gravity of the kit should be around 1065 and final gravity 1017. This should give around 7% ABV.

If I well understood your formula, if I reduce the added sugar of 250g I should obtain an initial gravity around 1057 - 1058. If the final gravity would stay around 1017, I should obtain an ABV around 6% which is more aligned to my IPA taste.
Did I got the point?

 

[Mash Monster]

Thank you for sharing the formula (I was looking for a quantitative relation like that).
So, according to the kit instruction initial gravity of the kit should be around 1065 and final gravity 1017. This should give around 7% ABV.

If I well understood your formula, if I reduce the added sugar of 250g I should obtain an initial gravity around 1057 - 1058. If the final gravity would stay around 1017, I should obtain an ABV around 6% which is more aligned to my IPA taste.
Did I got the point?

1.065 - 1.017 is about 6.3%ABV
1.057 - 1.017 is about 5.25% ABV

 

[emmever]

1.065 - 1.017 is about 6.3%ABV
1.057 - 1.017 is about 5.25% ABV

Thanks!