Second brew, stout additions?

[desert drinker]

I've just bottled my first brew, a StPeters Ruby Red. It had 17 days in the FV and went from 1043 to 1012. Bottling went well with 1/2 tsp of sugar in each bottle, going to leave for a week in the warm (around 24-26 in my home) then a couple of weeks in the fridge before tasting. Can't wait!
I'm looking to start building up a rolling stock so put on a stout straight away. I've used a can of Black Rock Miners Stout, with 1kg of extra dark DME and 400g of dark muscavado sugar. OG was 1053 as I brewed slightly short to 19l. Am now wondering if it might need an additional bitterness element, any idea if it does, and if so how can I go about it?
Cheers all!

 

[andyakameatloaf]

I've never used this kit before so I have no idea whether it does need additional bittering or not, I'm sure someone will be along to confirm this soon.

However if not and for future here's a good way to get a rough gauge as to whether it does or not, and how to do it. It sounds complex, but its really not. It's known as a hop tea or hop infusion. You'll need hops of your choice and either a hop sack or some muslin.

brew and ferment as normal, leaving in primary for two weeks at least.
After this take a sample into a (sanitised) trial jar or the like, and have a good quaff. It will taste slightly different after conditioning, however at this stage if you taste little to no bitterness, then its a safe bet you will need to bitter it slightly.

Note the AA% of the hops you bought. The higher this value, the more bitterness you'll get out of them. I'm on my phone atm so I can't get a calculator up to work out IBU calculations, but you should be able to do it on any brew recipe software.
I use BrewToad.com cus its free.
Forget writing in the fermentables and all that, just write in your brew length +1 litre (to account for the hop tea your going to add) and your hops and their AA%, then play around with the amount in grams of your hops and the boil times till you get an IBU figure that fits roughly how bitter you want it to taste.
Once you work out how bitter you want it and how much hops to use, Put them in the muslin/hop sack and tie so they can't get out. Bring 2l of water to the boil and dissolve your priming sugar into it, then add the hops and boil for the time you worked out.
Strain them off and add the liquid to a clean FV/bottling bucket and bottle straight from that (remember you have already added your priming sugar to the hop tea, so don't add more!) or if you use a pressure barrel add it directly into that, then siphon your beer on top of it.

hope this helps.

 

[desert drinker]

Great, thanks for that! Will have a play on the software and see what I can plan.....