An attempt to tweak Wilkos golden ale kit.

AdeDunn · Sep 17, 2017

Right, I messed up a bit as made it a litre too long (24 instead of 23), so added some extra sugar (as listed).

1x Wilkos Golden Ale kit
1kg light DME
500g brewing sugar (to try to counter the extra litre... :=P )

OG 1.047 (corrected for taking at 25 degrees C).

Yeast: 1x CML US Pale Ale yeast (11g), rehydrated for 15 minutes before pitching at 25 degrees Celsius. Fitted a blow of tube as I suspect this may kick off a bit on the vigorous side...

Fingers crossed now. Plan is to dry hop with 25g of Falconer's Flight Blend hop tea bag once it's finished fermenting, give it a bit more aroma and flavour. Wort smelled quite nice though.

I made a note in my brewing notes (I use One Note on my phone when brewing, which then syncs with it on my desktop) to only dechlorinate 22 litres of water when making up Wilkos kits in future, seems that the kit is pretty much exactly 1 litre in volume, and I'd dechlorinated 23 litres and didn't pay enough attention when topping up the wort.... :doh:

Godsdog · Sep 17, 2017

AdeDunn said:
Right, I messed up a bit as made it a litre too long (24 instead of 23), so added some extra sugar (as listed).

1x Wilkos Golden Ale kit
1kg light DME
500g brewing sugar (to try to counter the extra litre... :=P )

OG 1.047 (corrected for taking at 25 degrees C).

Yeast: 1x CML US Pale Ale yeast (11g), rehydrated for 15 minutes before pitching at 25 degrees Celsius. Fitted a blow of tube as I suspect this may kick off a bit on the vigorous side...

Fingers crossed now. Plan is to dry hop with 25g of Falconer's Flight Blend hop tea bag once it's finished fermenting, give it a bit more aroma and flavour. Wort smelled quite nice though.

I made a note in my brewing notes (I use One Note on my phone when brewing, which then syncs with it on my desktop) to only dechlorinate 22 litres of water when making up Wilkos kits in future, seems that the kit is pretty much exactly 1 litre in volume, and I'd dechlorinated 23 litres and didn't pay enough attention when topping up the wort....

Done dry hopping with FF7 on a wilko hoppy copper with 50gram not impressed one bit

AdeDunn · Sep 18, 2017

Not hoppy enough? Or was it the flavours you didn't like?

I could possibly try a bit of amarillo and citra too (25g each).

Sandimas · Sep 18, 2017

I've tweaked both Golden and Hoppy Copper, both with mini-mashes and plenty of hops and they've come out good. I used 100g of hops (Brewers Gold) in the Hoppy Copper and 50g (Willamette and Styrian Goldings) in the Golden.

I'd be tempted to us a bit more than 25g in your brew, like you I've always been a bit conservative in the past and wished I'd put more hops in (and I'm not a hop-head).

Godsdog · Sep 18, 2017

AdeDunn said:
Not hoppy enough? Or was it the flavours you didn't like?

I could possibly try a bit of amarillo and citra too (25g each).

Flavour definitely, was after citrus but nothing like and not very nice,hard to describe really but wouldn't use them again

Sandimas · Sep 18, 2017

Godsdog said:
Flavour definitely, was after citrus but nothing like and not very nice,hard to describe really but wouldn't use them again

I'm really not sure about Amarillo.

I brewed BrewUK's Way To Amarillo 5 years ago and from what I remember it was very good. Also gets 91 good reviews on their website.
https://www.brewuk.co.uk/amarillo-recipe-pack.html

However, since then I've tried a few Amarillo recipes of my own and they've not been nice. Looking at the BrewUK recipe, the late hops are fairly low in quantity so I reckon it's easy to over-do it with Amarillo, unlike other hops such as Cascade where you can just keep adding more.

chub1 · Sep 18, 2017

Amarillo and citra,Mmmmmmmmmmm Mmmmmmmmmmmm:thumb:

dps51 · Sep 18, 2017

I did try some of these a few time cam out not to bad
should be the same using the wilko ones best of luck hope it turns out ok
http://store.coopers.com.au/brewing-info/recipes.html

AdeDunn · Sep 18, 2017

I love beers with amarillo and citra myself, they combine really nicely. Falconer's Flight is supposed to have pine and citrus flavours, so I am thinking amarillo and citra will boost the citrus, and maybe add a bit of tropical, if the FFs are a tad insipid. :thumb:

I bought a variety of hops, hence ended up with a few types, so I could experiment. Got some Halertau and Saaz as well to try on a Wilko's Cerveza kit to try to give that some flavour too (I did the Coopers one, and it's not really hoppy enough for me, a bit like Corona/Sol, where I prefer Dos Equis). I figure cheap kits are good to experiment with, as if it's nasty it's a smaller loss. :wink:

So you'll be seeing more posts from me about making brews to experiment with dry hopping on. :drunk:

Thanks for the input, much appreciated, keep it coming. :thumb:

Pavros · Sep 18, 2017

I've tried 25g of amarillo and 25g of cascade together in a wilko golden ale when it was s 2 can kit and it was delicious

AdeDunn · Sep 19, 2017

Sounds it Pavros. :)

I had fun rehydrating the CML US Pale Ale yeast! It turned into a sticky ball around the spoon I was stirring it with for ages.... lol

It's going great guns now, about 3 bubbles a second (if not more), just as well I habitually use a blow off tube for the initial fermentation nowadays really.

AdeDunn · Oct 6, 2017

Time to update.

Airlock hasn't done anything for the last few days (confident the lid is air tight), so I decided to take a sample and check the SG. Gone from 1.047 down to 1.006 (about the norm I believe for the CML US Pale Ale yeast). So good bit of strength already.

Tasted the trial jar, and wow was it unexpected! It actually tasted a little like a wheat beer! Straw coloured as expected. Anyway, given the wheatyness I decided to dry hop with 25g Falconer's Flight (in a little bag), 25g Amarillo (loose pellets) and 25g of Citra (loose pellets) to try to complement the subtle flavour hopefully.

Will hopefully make a lovely spring pint, if it lasts that long, which I doubt...:twisted:

AdeDunn · Oct 11, 2017

Bottled the golden earlier, and shared the remains in the bottling bucket with my wife afterwards. Way too sugary in the start thanks to the priming sugar, but really really hoppy with a lovely juicy fruitiness, spot on. :thumb:

An attempt to tweak Wilkos golden ale kit.

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