Beginner wanting to brew Epic Pale Ale with home brew kit

[Michael van Wijk]

I found the following ingredients on the Epic website: Malt - English Pale Ale, Crystal, Hops - US Cascade. Is there anyway of replicating this? What are Crystal's? What kit would be an English Pale Ale base to start with? Any other ideas or suggestions appreciated.  

[denimglen]

You can't steep Golden Promise as such, it needs to be mashed correctly to get the sugars out and avoid a hazy starchy beer.

 

Crystal is easily steepable.

 

I'd go with the Thomas Fawcett DME that Jo at Liberty sells, it's a good extract and will be better than most, if not all, of the canned extract.  Get him to hook you up with the crystal and hops as well.  He'll also crush it as well, as a good homebrew shop would.  I hate to keep referencing the same thing over and over again but it's all here  http://howtobrew.com/section2/chapter13-3.html.

[Rhyno]

Yeah seconded there Michael. That book How to brew is like my bible. It really is worth spending a lot of time going over and reading the whole thing. Even if you were to just stick to kit brewing it will improve your end product 10 fold

In fact I have just ordered a hard copy of that and brewing classic styles from Amazon, can't wait to get them.

[Darrin Smith]

i learnt alot from youtube

[Michael van Wijk]

I'm looking at finally getting around to doing this clone. Just finishing a peat smoke porter which was a mini mash. Now am going to give BIAB a go. Got my pot etc and just finishing off my immersion cooler. At what stage do you rack to your secondary to dry hop? How far into fermentation I guess or is it when it's finished?

Once it's in the secondary, how long does it sit there with the hops before bottling?

[Rhyno]

Good on you bud, I am just starting on BIAB myself after just finishing my 2nd brew.

As far as I know, transferring to secondary can differ from beer to beer, you want to time it when the primary fermentation is starting to wind down, when the yeast starts to drop off and the bubbling of the airlock has backed off quite a way.

One trick I have heard of when doing a lager as it can be quite hard to know when the timing is right, is to do a Fast Ferment Test, that is where you take a sample of your wort and ferment it separately at warm temperatures. Once it is done you have an idea of your FG, and when you hit that , or near about, it is time to rack to secondary

[Michael van Wijk]

Is it ok to dry hop into primary fermenter after fermentation has finished and then and leave for a fortnight? What do you reckon about just adding the pellets directly into the beer rather than in a hop sock? Cheers... can't wait to bottle my porter and get this APA off...

[Rhyno]

Don't worry about transferring to secondary, the risks for you at this stage outweigh the benefits.

As far as dry hopping goes, I have not done alot of it yet, but from what I hear, about 6 days??? in the fermenter.

Where do you live bud, if you are by chance in Tauranga I might be able to come round on brew day

[Michael van Wijk]

Up in the big smoke... Auckland... well, what used to be Rodney District but sucked into the super city.

I was thinking of dry hopping for a fortnight with 100gm US Cascade... hopefully by then the pellets will have settled back into the trub.

How has  your experience with dry hopping gone with the ones you've done? Are you pleased with the results? Disappointed?

[Rhyno]

I am really not the one to ask about dry hopping I am afraid, hopefully someone else can give you some more experienced feedback on that matter.

Hope all goes well for your first BIAB

[Matt Smith]

I just throw mine directly into the primary once krausen has subsided. I use pellets, with no hop bag. I usually leave for around 5-7 days then crash cool the fermenter down to fridge temps for about two days, by which stage all of the hops drop out to the bottom, then I siphon to keg or bottles. I'm not sure how you'd go about this if you didn't have a way to cool the fermenter, they generally begin to drop on their own after about 5 days in my experience though, it just wont be super clear i suppose.

[Michael van Wijk]

ok, cheers for that Matt... I guess I'll wait for a frost... :-)

How much hops do you add? Does it come out nice and hoppy? That's what I'm looking forward too.

[Matt Smith]

Good point, a few more weeks and sticking it outside overnight should do the trick !

As for the amount of hops, It depends what I'm looking for in the beer, if I want just a little extra depth to the aroma then about 20g. If I'm after something like Epic Pale ale then Id say your 100g should do the trick for sure.

Just remember with dry hopping, although it'll add a little flavour, your mainly getting aroma from it, so you'll need a good dose of late hops in the boil also to add that big hop flavour.