Vague instructions

[Stanna]

Hi all, I've been buying all grain mash kits from the homebrewcompany for a while now, it's made my life so easy as the kits have all the instructions inside eg. Water amounts, hop additions etc. Because of postage cost from Ireland going up I now have purchased 4 different all grain mash kits from the malt Miller instead, the only problem is there's no instructions inside the kits and what info is on the website is so vague some I can understand but not this one http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.ph ... uctId=1092.
Old perc, would I just add all the hops at the beginnings of the boil ?? As it has no instructions as when to add them.
Any help would be gratefully received.

[Kev888]

I noticed some authors of those kits have specified hop additions in the notes, others haven't and sadly it looks like 'Bromalt' is one of the latter. You could email the malt miller and ask, but if its a customer's recipe then they may not know.

TBH I've no idea who bromalt is or how good a clone the recipe is; the bitterness is somewhat greater than the old perculier recipes I've used and the hops are not quite the same either so I can only guess. FWIW though I'd expect he/she intended the Target to be added at the start of the boil, the fuggles towards the end (say 10mins before), and the challenger could be either or somewhere in between but to get the bitterness specified I'd imagine they'd need to be in for much of the boil. Thats very much a guess though so if anyone knows better go with them.

[Hogarth]

I think the Malt Miller would do well to add a 'hop schedule' field.

[Stanna]

I was under the impression I was buying tried and tested kits from the malt Miller but having thought about it the authors could be as green as me with no idea of how to create a good recipe the very least the malt Miller could do is make them add all the info for the recipe before selling them.

[Tony1951]

This kind of thing was noticeable with AG Ingredients kits from Geterbrewed. One I had from them just had vac packed hops in little packets with numbers scrawled on them in black marker like '60' and '15' and '0'. Having done a few AG brews I knew what to do with the stuff and the beer was excellent. The quality of the materials was first class too - no complaint, but the kit might have stumped a beginner completely. Other kits from them had printed labels saying stuff like '60 minutes', '10 minutes' and '0 minutes'.

If you've done a few simple brews I think you can work it all out as long as you know what the hops are so you don't accidentally put the late hops in for an hour long boil or something mad like that.

[Stanna]

At the moment I will go with what kev888 has said about adding the hops as I have little knowledge of what hops do what.

[Kev888]

..but having thought about it the authors could be as green as me with no idea of how to create a good recipe...

I've not used these kits myself yet, though the ability to buy just what is needed and potentially save the list for re-ordering looks excellent. However, if you choose someone else's from the general brewing community then unless you know of them (e.g. they have a good reputation on a credible forum) or are familiar enough to judge for yourself then I agree it could be a bit of an unknown. Though to be fair thats also true of recipes from many sources, even published ones. The one you have selected looks perfectly reasonable to me though, slightly different to the ones I've used but nothing weird about it; I hope you'll enjoy both making and drinking it!

[Stanna]

The malt Miller have emailed me back and are sorting the lack of info for the two beers by adding to the comments about hop additions, nice one malt Miller and thanks for the help on here everyone

[alexlark]

Going by the recipe here:
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=48378

Using your ingredients I would say:
Challenger & Target 90mins
Fuggles 10mins

Ideally you want to put your hops AA into some brewing software just to make sure you don't overshoot the bitterness.

[Kev888]

The malt Miller have emailed me back and are sorting the lack of info for the two beers by adding to the comments about hop additions, nice one malt Miller and thanks for the help on here everyone

Good stuff I've always found the service to be top notch, nice to see it still is.

[barneey]

I have just had a look at a few recipes in the Graham W books I have, one in particular I will quote from Brew your own British Real Ale 3rd Edition. Page 182

Start of boil hops based on 25litres, Challenger 32g, Fuggles 15g

Last 10 minutes of boil Goldings 15g

So in the example of the kit you bought I would assume the Target might have used for a late edition rather than a Golding? rather odd though

Quote again GW BYOBRAAH page 178 Challenger 25g, Fuggles 42g start of boil , no late hops.

One other thing, I have no idea of how Rob's site works BUT what if I were to brew an OldP to a clone recipe and as part of the order I wanted some hops for another project / brew say 50g of Galaxy which as we know would not have any place in a OldP clone, would they however be included in the recipe list?

EDIT just to muddy the waters a little more, whilst searching for the use of target hops in OldP I found an old Roger P, co author of the 2 nd bood mentioned above http://protzonbeer.co.uk/features/2004/ ... -theakston

[Kev888]

Yes possibly, though the kit recipe seems to have a somewhat higher bitterness than BYOBRAAH's, that I couldn't see being reached without using the target for bittering. Seems more appropriate too. Obviously it depends on the %AAs involved though and could be a more complex schedule - it'll be interesting to hear what the official verdict is.

[Stanna]

This is what the malt Miller have told me to do with regards hop additions in their old perc 30g Challenger at 60 mins
15g Target at 30 mins
15g Fuggles at 5 mins

[Kev888]

Interesting, thanks for reporting back. Seems reasonably conventional then. I may have reversed the Challenger and Target, but don't do this - aside from anything else the quantities will be right for their schedule.

[barneey]

It might also prove useful to buy a few of the GW books as most of the recipes contained within said are the foundation of many subsequent recipes, published by others.