Wilko Feeling Hoppy

[FunkyGBrown]

Afternoon all,

Recently gotten into brewing and picked up the 'feeling hoppy' IPA kit from Wilko's Artisan range.

Just thinking about additions I can do, as my experience of other homebrew kits people have done is they can often come out a bit watery and flavourless.

It's a 1.8kg kit with 10g Amarillo hops. I was thinking:

Add 1KG Beer enhancer and 500g Light Dry Malt Extract to the kit.

Add a hop tea using the 10g Amarillo (is 10g enough?)

Pitch yeast at appropriate temperature

3/4 days before bottling dry hop with 100g citra to make it 'Feeling Extra Hoppy'. I quite like a Hoppy IPA.

Thoughts on this? Quite new to brewing so these additions are made based on my own judgement from reading through the numerous informative posts on here.

Thank you,

 

[Avo]

Those look like good points. Made this kit a while back, just using 1 Kg of sugar. It wasn't bad but as been said, a bit light in everything.
Addition of enhancer / DME should help, 1/2 Kg of DME is probably enough, or may add too much malty taste.
Addition of hops is a must as the 10g just isn't enough. aim for 50g or more in total.
I would make again if I come across this kit, but certainly with more hops.

 

[Pavros]

I have made this kit once before and am halfway through fermenting a second batch. I added 1kg of brew enhancer to both kits. To the first one, I added 50g Citra and 50g Mosaic as a dry hop and it was very good. I plan on adding 75g of Falconers Flight to the second. The Amarillo hops that came with the kits have been used elsewhere.

 

[FunkyGBrown]

I have made this kit once before and am halfway through fermenting a second batch. I added 1kg of brew enhancer to both kits. To the first one, I added 50g Citra and 50g Mosaic as a dry hop and it was very good. I plan on adding 75g of Falconers Flight to the second. The Amarillo hops that came with the kits have been used elsewhere.

That sounds promising for the kit then, at what point in the fermenting did you dry hop?

 

[Pavros]

I've checked my notes and I dry hopped on day 12 and bottled on day 17. It dropped from 1.014 at day 12 to 1.012 at bottling and ended up at about 4.6% abv.

 

[FunkyGBrown]

Just opened the kit and the sachet of yeast is 6g?

Perhaps a silly question but is that enough to get a quality end product? Wilko's pack of ale yeast is 11g.

 

[Pavros]

Watching the rugby and cracked open the Wilko Feeling Hoppy IPA brewed with cml Pia yeast and dry hopped with 75g of Falconers Flight. Bottled 2 weeks ago.

First pint - nicely carbonated, slightly thin (perhaps a mini mash with some crystal next time?) and hops are slightly harsh.

Second pint - this isn't going to last long. Probably more of a hoppy pale ale rather than an IPA.

This may be a good kit to experiment with. At £16, it's a bit expensive but when it's on sale at £12, it's worth a punt.

 

[MirtazaPaul]

Have just bought one of these.

Wondering whether to just add the hops as per Wilko's instructions or use a net bag with marbles in, Godfather style.

It all gets confusing!

 

[Pavros]

I just chuck them in.
When siphoning, I put a small mesh bag from a Festival kit over the end of the tube in the fv to reduce transferring any trub into the bottles.

 

[MirtazaPaul]

Cheers, useful info

 

[bigshineybike]

What is it about the Wilco kits that gives them such a light sediment?
As others have said the hop sachet is a bit mean but I've just bottled one of those feeling hoppy kits and after two weeks in fermenting it's so clear already and significant difference in amount of sediment to the fancy craft kits from Young's or Minton's.
The mouthful from the siphon is encouraging and

 

[Rodcx500z]

I have done this kit a few times over winter when it is to cold for ag outside, i do the kit + 1kg of medium dme swap the yeast for gervin from wilko i don't use the hops, turns out really well

 

[rybinss]

I've brewed this as above but used 50g of cml punked up hops, it's conditioned nicely in the keg but has a very pronounced home brew twang. Used ashbeck water and gervin yeast so hacked off that's it still got that homebrew taste twang. Will leave it a few weeks/months to see if it improves. Gives me the incentive to get my AG setup up and running though

 

[bigshineybike]

I have started drinking my 'feeling hoppy' now. Its been in the shed a month. I have been adding water to my kits using a hanging electronic scale . I just found out its reading light so I reckon I added at least 2 extra litres of water.
I cant help feeling it tastes a bit watery but still a very good pint Im going to try a second batch and use a hydrometer.

 

[FunkyGBrown]

So I never actually got round to doing this kit until about 4 weeks ago. Added 500g LME and 1kg of brew enhancer along with 50g citra and 50g mosaic as a dry hop.

They've been bottle conditioning for 2 weeks. Chilled one and cracked it open this evening and crikey I never thought homebrew could taste this good. Very smooth and citrusy with great head retention. 10/10 would brew again.

 

[BrewBeer]

Added 1kg of light dry malt extract at the start and 50g of citra pellets towards the end. Didn't have a heat pad until the last three days as appeared to have stalled. Now drinking after 7 days in the bottle and is a lovely brew. Bought kit and dme at Wilko's at full price so including hops cost around £32.50 which is steep but needs must. If this was on special offer would buy more.

 

[Jim Brewster]

Got a can of this, sounds good but I am thinking I'll definitely need to give it a dry hop, might go with Amarillo if that's the hops provided in the kit.

 

[Jim Brewster]

Made this kit at the weekend - the hops provided actually had First Gold on the packet - weighing in at 15 grams including the packet so around 0.5g/L for the dry hop. Since I had already ordered 100g Amarillo I decided to use the hops provided to make a hop tea at 80C for 20 minutes which all went into the fermenter, and will dry hop with 50g Amarillo instead.

[I know people say to brew a kit as-is before tweaking but I am 99% confident it won't have enough hops for my taste in standard form]

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Made this kit at the weekend - the hops provided actually had First Gold on the packet - weighing in at 15 grams including the packet so around 0.5g/L for the dry hop. Since I had already ordered 100g Amarillo I decided to use the hops provided to make a hop tea at 80C for 20 minutes which all went into the fermenter, and will dry hop with 50g Amarillo instead.

[I know people say to brew a kit as-is before tweaking but I am 99% confident it won't have enough hops for my taste in standard form]

Ignore what they say and do it your way.