Sytrian addition to a youngs brewbuddy kit

[ryanmanchester]

A mate bought an extract kit yesterday and wants me to brew it... It's a Youngs Brewbuddy 40 pint kit (1.8kg) and I've got plenty of Sytrian Goldings in the freezer.

It says to add 1kg of white sugar (not that I want to), and says the following on the label:

Colour: 27 - 33 EBC
Bitterness: 45 - 55 EBU (EBU?)
Extract 'Solids': 80 - 83%
Extract Value: 310L*/kg

So, can I get away with making a smaller batch by not adding the extra sugar? and how much extra hops would be good to make a decent beer out of it? I don't want to make a full boil out of it because I doubt it'd be worth it and my kettle isn't fit to do it at the moment (panel beating it to get the damn kettle element to fit tight )

[prolix]

if you reduce the length by just adding less water and no sugar the bitterness will increase as it will be more concentrated it will increase by nearly half as much again in fact (EBU are the same as IBU's I believe, the bittering unit) , I would get 1 kg of spray malt to replace the sugar. If you can't boil the lot then boil up a bit and then add the styrians to that maybe just 25-30g (others will say add more as styrians are nice) when you hit boil add hops and leave for 5 mins then turn the heat off and leave for 20 mins this will add aroma and flavour to the beer. You should strain this back to the the bulk then.

or aternatively what Daab said

daab just 23 posts from 20000

[ryanmanchester]

So I'm not adding it all to the saucepan, just the rinsed out bit with some water?

[ryanmanchester]

Well I like Sytrians so I think I'll do the 10% of wort in the saucepan thing and add 30 - 40g in the pan if it fits, then I'll dry hop 30g in secondary just to be sure

Thanks for the help, I'll let you know how it turns out.

[Aleman]

There is an article on the web about using extract as a water treatment, I believe Aleman has read it also as i'm sure he's mentioned it so he might know where to find it but i've done a quick search and drawn a blank.

I've used the trick of dissolving a couple of spoonfuls of extract in my sparge liquor to ensure that the pH doesn't go above 6.0 . . . it works well for me because of my low alkalinity YMMV. I think I got it from Wheeler . . . . Not sure if it was published or to the original UKHB mailing list, but it was a very silly long time ago.

The only other thing to add is that steeping hops in water isn't the most effective method of making a 'hop tea', which is what you are doing by steeping them here, you get a more successful extraction if the liquid is sightly acid. Again using a little bit of wort does the trick, or simply the dregs from the can of extract.

[ryanmanchester]

OK, I just got round to brewing this today. I picked up 1kg of light DME to replace the white sugar, and I added 25g of Sytrian Goldings to about 1.5L of wort made up from the extract and some DME, and left it for 20m before straining it to the fermenter. I then decided what the hell and added 200g of DME to boiling water in the pan and added 30g of hops... about 7 minutes later I decided to add another 15g of hops as the wort was about 85C

Hopefully it wont be too much hops but the best beer's I've tasted have had have had masses of hops added so if it comes out too hoppy then I'll give it a long conditioning and see how it tones down.

[ryanmanchester]

I think I'll just keep upping the amount each time I brew then till I find some kind of limit

[ryanmanchester]

OK I forgot to leave space for the 1.8L starter I made so the OG is a bit low at 1.039 at 5.5 UK gallons. Actually I took a swig of the clearer stuff on the top to bring it down to about 1.5L





It's was quite bitter at 1.050 and it seems about right now but hopefully with all the hops, and the 30g dry hopping hops I'm going to use, it should make up for it.

What do you think? Maybe I should add 200g of sugar to bump up the OG?

[ryanmanchester]

I think this might be the year to go malty to be honest (with the hop shortage)

Well I bought 300g of Sytrian Goldings a couple of months ago and according to ProMash, these hops don't store too well. (Though I have been keeping them in the freezer for the most part.) That, and I've been set on wanting to learn to brew a light but very hoppy ale this year for the past few months. I also just spent about £25 on hops so it looks like I'm set to do it atleast till they run out

[ryanmanchester]

It's already hopped...

[ryanmanchester]

Oh right I see.

Yeah I had learned about bringing it to 80C before adding the aroma hops. I'll definitely be doing that with my all grain batches. I really want to try dry hopping too to get the fresh hop aroma smell just before bottling.

I'm also gonna order a hopback from http://beerbelly.com.au/ too so I'll have enough ways to hop to try out this year. Should be interesting to say the least!!

[ryanmanchester]

Yeah lots of all stainless steel equipment. I like the kettle strainer but I bought a false bottom from morebeer for that, along with one for the mash tun. nice and solid bit of kit too.

[ryanmanchester]

looks like my brew has stopped fermenting at 1.011 from 1.039 (71.5% attenuation)

i'm gonna secondary it but if it stays above 1.011 is there any chance it could blow some bottles later on?

[ryanmanchester]

Yeah I prefer to leave it 2 - 3 days more in primary, I'll give it a swirl though thanks.