Brewing first IPA this weekend - NEED HELP

[themartinezmafia]

The plan is to brew my first IPA using a Thomas Cooper liquid malt extract kit. Here is my dilemma. The recipes I’ve used in the past have all called for a boil time of 60 minutes to as low as a 10 minute which is when I would add my hops. This Thomas Cooper doesn’t appear to have a boil time so when should I be adding my hops. Does the instructions noted below sound right? I plan on transferring the brew to a keg from the primary fermenter but how long should I keep it in the primary fermenter? Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Here are my ingredients.
Thomas Cooper IPA liquid malt extract
3 pounds of light dry malt extract
1 oz centennial hops
The yeast packet that came with the Thomas Cooper IPA LME

Here are the Thomas Cooper instructions
Dissolve contents of can and dry malt extract into less than ½ gallon (2 liters) of boiling water. Add 5.2 gallons (20 liters) of cold water to the fermenter bucket and dump the mixture into the cold water. Mix thoroughly with plastic spoon and check temp. Top up to 6.07 gallons (23 liters) with hot/cold water in order to achieve approx. 70-80 degrees F.

 

[freisste]

Can you look on the can and determine if it is hopped malt extract? If so, you should minimize boil time (follow the instructions re 10 minutes).

If not, you are going to need a lot more than 1oz of hops. Likely at least 3-4, although there are 5 gallon batches that use more like a pound of hops.

If it is hopped extract, you can add your extra ounce at the beginning of the 10 minute boil for more flavor. Alternatively you could add it at the end just before adding cold water for a little more aroma. The maximum effect may be achieved if you dry hop (because it will act upon the full volume) - you will wait for fermentation to complete (say about two weeks) and add the pellets to the fermenter. Wait another 3-7 days and move forward as usual.

 

[RonPopeil]

after reading some reviews about this it seems that this is a hopped extract. reviewers didn't talk about adding hops and total time to make the kit is claimed to be 15 minutes.

i would say combine all ingredients, add to a volume of water to hit your desired finished volume and pitch the yeast.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000KWTEVO/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[RonPopeil]

what's up with your user name?

 

[E_Marquez]

Sure looks to be pre hopped LME
https://store.coopers.com.au/shop/product/thomas-coopers-ipa-refill-pack/

if so,,,get it warm enough to pasteurize,, boil is really over kill,, and boiling for more then 10 is super duty overkill.

Where did your centennial hops come from? They don't look to be part of the Coopers kit...

If that is a store add on,,, I'd think it can only be for aroma .. and not much of that.

 

[themartinezmafia]

Yes, it is a pre hoppped LME.... this seems super easy, I hope it tastes good.

The people at my local homebrew store recommended the hops and they typically give good advised but I just forgot to ask when to add the add'l hops.

So will boiling it ruin the beer?

Re: themartinezmafia, my wife has a blog titled themartinezmafia where she talks about the crazy life we live having 3 kids all under the age of 4 and since she's the creative one I stole the name to use as my handle.

Thanks for all of the good info.

 

[freisste]

Ruin is a strong word.

Prehopped extract has a certain hop profile. (The same as your wort does when you boil and add hops at different times. If you did a 60 minute boil with hop additions at various times and you ended with a bunch of flavor and aroma hops...then you boiled another half hour, the other half hour would change things a lot.

Still beer, but much different.

So no, more boiling will NOT ruin it, but it WILL change it...likely for the worse, IMHO. Get it to a boil, then start cooling.

 

[RonPopeil]

they most likely wanted you to use them as a flavor addition. i'm thinking, since your extract is hopped, your hop schedule is going to depend on how hot you get it and how quickly you cool it. there's probably some quirk with these kits where they end up overly bitter from too much heat so they tell you to add some late addition hops to fix it.

 

[themartinezmafia]

Another quick question.... I accidentally lets my sanitized airlock cap in the bottom of my primary fermenter and didn't realize it until the end. I have several airlock tops so I just used another one. Is this a big deal? Should I fish it out?

 

[freisste]

If it was sanitized, it won't hurt anything. If it wasn't sanitized, it has already done any damage it will do. Likely you will only hurt things trying to get it out, so leave it alone and get it out when you clean it.

You're totally fine, by the way. I highly doubt any issues will come of this. Cheers.

 

[themartinezmafia]

It was sanitized but your reassurance will help me sleep tonight. hahaha. Thanks Freisste.

 

[thenick]

I just did my IPA and it's now racked. Same can as you. Difference is that I boiled my LME (1kg) and didn't boil the can. Just added the can to the fermenter with the boiled LME.

I've done this with coopers pilsner before and the result was pretty good too! I'm hoping for a similar result with my IPA. Pending the gla out I this batch I may add in some hope an either increase or decrease the amount of LME.

So far it's at in the primary fermenter for just under 6days, and I won't bottle for at a min 2weeks.

Your thoughts??