Brupacks Almondbury Old. Modifying my brew

[Llamapup]

Hello All

I've successfully brewed a a few batches of beer this year and am feeling confident to try and make a few modifications to the ingredients to get a beer more to my taste.

I've bought a kit from Brupack called Almondbury Old. Here is a weblink with the description: http://www.brewstore.co.uk/brupaks-pride-of-yorkshire-almondbury-old-ale-beer-kit-44-p.asp

Its a 3KG kit that makes 40 litres.

I chose the kit because I wanted something rich, dark and malty but a bit lighter than a Porter. After speaking to the guy who runs my local brew shop and describing how I like my beer he reccomended that experiment by making a few changes to the kit as follows:

1) Reduce the volume from 40 pints to 36
2) Add 500g of spraymalt at the start of fermentation to increase the malty flavour
3) Add up to 500g of sugar to increase alcohol and make it smoother drinking.

First of all what do people think of these suggestions? What sort of beer should I expect by making these changes? Will this destroy the balance of the beer flavour.

The kit comes with a teabag of hop pellets which it says to infuse as a tea to add to the FV at start of fermentation. The directions give some advice about using this to make a beer that is more bitter or just more fragrant by using different methods of steeping. I'm not keen on very hoppy beers, so should I omit these hops altogether? I'm worried ommiting the hops may make the flavour of the beer less balanced.

What do you all think?

Thanks

Llamapup

 

[RobWalker]

Leave the sugar out. Enhancer is 50/50 sugar and dme, so you're basically adding enhancer that way. More malt equals more body :) sugar will make it drier and sharper.

Brewing kits short is a vast improvement, I almost always brew short! Loads more body and flavour.

Leaving the hops out seems pointless to me, they're part of the kit after all. It sounds to me like you are ready for extract brewing! :)

 

[Llamapup]

Well I've started the brew now with a few modifications. I really didn't want a very hoppy beer, so steeped the hops tea bag included in the kit for a reduced time. The directions were a bit vague but the reccomended 40 minutes of boiling seemed very long.

I've added 500g of dark spraymalt, but only 100g sugar to bring my brew up to my target SG of 1.060. Hopefully that will yield a nice dark and malty beer. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Thanks

Llamapup

 

[Llamapup]

Well the airlock has been bubbling quite furiously, but has started to slow down so I thought it was worth lifting the lid to check things out.

The brew started at 1.060 SG on Tuesday night and has reached 1.020 by Saturday morining. So according to the Homebrew Forum calculator that's 5.3 % ABV already.

I'm aiming for a 1.012 FG so that will make it about 6.4% when its done.

The fermentation seems to have slowed quite a bit though. It will be interesting to see if it goes much further with the yeast included in the Brupacks kit.