Last weekend I took the step up from basic one/two-can kits (I've done 3 of them so far) to an extract kit. I chose the BrewUK Wadworth 6X extract kit as 6X is one of my favourite beers. I settled on buying a 13.5l stock pot after various research on here and other forums and it was easily big enough the steep the grains in 6l of water and then add 700g of DME plus the hops for boiling.
Overall the brew day went well but I've got a couple of questions. 1) I'm not sure that I got a good hot break. Certainly got a decent rolling boil going but was expecting more 'fireworks' in the pot. Will probably check out some videos/forum posts to see what it should have been like.
2) I got lots of lumps of DME in the wort when I added the remaining 1.8kg after the boil and it was really difficult to get everything dissolved! Think I've heard people mention that before as being a problem. Had to put the heat back on to be able to get it all, mostly all, dissolved and only ended up with 1.038 OG instead of 1.042 in the instructions.
First extract kit: A few questions
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Jocky
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Re: First extract kit: A few questions
I don't think you'll get a lot of hot break in extract brews - the process used to create dry extract removes most of the proteins that cause this effect.
To add the DME to the wort you need to do it slowly, and just keep stirring as you do! I suggest you add it just before the end of the boil. Don't worry too much about the gravity reading - it will change with temperature but also the amount of liquid you boiled off - no two brewing set ups will make the same beer, you'll just know to adjust things a bit next time.
To add the DME to the wort you need to do it slowly, and just keep stirring as you do! I suggest you add it just before the end of the boil. Don't worry too much about the gravity reading - it will change with temperature but also the amount of liquid you boiled off - no two brewing set ups will make the same beer, you'll just know to adjust things a bit next time.
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.
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StuAlban
Re: First extract kit: A few questions
Thanks, I hadn't thought of it like that. 700g of DME is much different to a full AG batch so it's good to have a different expectation for the hot-break. The instructions told me to add the DME at the end of the boil and with probably having boiled off about 2l of the original 6l there wasn't much liquid left to dissolve the 1.8kg of DME into. In the end I put it back on the heat to help with the dissolving. Think I'll go with adding it just before the end of the boil next time. I suppose the main consequence is that it might darken the colour (or so I've read) but I'm not really bothered about that.