Anybody ever try mixing (2) True Brew extract kits?

[CHBKorea]

So a quick Google search left me hanging and I had this thought as I'm drinking bottles of my (still green) first batch (it turned out well, but is a little bland).

How do I get rid of all these kits I pre-bought when I started? I'm capable of doing 5 gallon full boils, but actually like the half-boil, late extract addtion and much frickin faster cooling (all distilled water, so I nearly freeze 3 gallons and chill the crap out of wort-chiller chilled 3 gallons on the stove) straight to a damn quick pitch and fast cleanup.

Back to my original question, what if I combined a True Brew Canadian Ale and a True Brew Pale Ale for a single 5 gallon batch? I loaded the ingredients up in "Brew Target" and it turned out looking a little interesting...

The recipe would look something like:
4 oz Crystal 60 steeped @ 155 for 30 minutes, then added to:
3.3 lbs Mutton's Hopped Light LME (Full boil) -> I calculated this as 1 0z of Cascade @60
1 lbs Mutton's Light DME (Full Boil)
3.3 lbs Mutton's Light LME (last 15 minutes)
3 lbs Mutton's Light DME (last 15 minutes)

(The hopped Mutton's LME says it is Solids 80-82%, Colour 8-13 EBC, Bitterness EBU 17-31))

Hop Additions:
1 oz (6.5 AA) Cascade @ 30
.5 Oz (5.3 AA) Willamette @15

Fermenting with the included (2) Mutton's yeast packets and a sachet of Safale US-05 for good measure...

(Would still have .5 oz of the 5.3 Willamette and 1 oz of the 4.8 Willamette leftover for future projects, or if the consensus is that this is underhopped I'd add them somewhere here)

Brew Target calculates this out to:

OG of 1.076
FG of 1.019
ABV 7.4
Bitterness 59.8
Color 8.1

Which works out to something close to an American IPA on mid side of hoppiness, just slightly over OG and FG, but right on the high side of the ABV... Does that sound about right?

What does everyone think of the pantry cleaning idea?

Am I all or does it seem like a idea?

EDIT: Spleling, fix IBU

[Ozwald]

Sounds like you've got an awful lot of sheep in that brew. (Munton's makes extract, mutton makes dinner)

At first glance I don't see anything wrong that makes it look like a bad idea to try out.

I would use other hops if they were available. Cascade & Willamette aren't bad, there's just other combos that would go together a little nicer. I might even up the IBU's a touch.

[BDawg]

Sounds like you got bitten by the bug. Like me, you ordered American Pale Lager and Canadian Lager kits then realized how much flavor there is in other styles. Hehehe. Welcome to the club.

Contrary to what Ozwald said, Cascade and Willamette go great together. Listen to what Vinny Cilurzo said in his very first BN Sunday Session show. This would have been around week 4 or 5 give or take. He touted a 3:1 ratio of Cascade to Willamette blend. I've used this combo myself (as well as the same 3:1 ratio but using Centennial:Willamette) and I can attest it is REALLY tasty. I wrote an IPA recipe years several years ago based on what Vinnie said about that hop combination that has been my goto IPA recipe for a long time:

http://www.brewtility.com/ViewRecipe.aspx?RecipeID=50

That said-

These kits are nothing more than a set of ingredients. Nothing says you can't break them apart or add other things to them. Steep in a 1/2 lb of Chocolate malt and a 1/2 lb of C60 and add them and some more Willamette to the Canadian kit with the Munton's yeast for a nice Northern Brown Ale. Add more hops. Steep in other malts. You DON'T have to brew them as is.

Once you want to start playing in this space, I suggest you pick up Jamil and Palmer's book "Brewing Classic Styles" so you can see what sorts of ingredients go into what beers. Another way to go about this is to search out clone beer recipes for commercial beers you like. And Ray Daniel's book "Designing Great Beers" is the goto source for how to put recipes together to achieve a flavor profile. It is pushing 20 years old now, so the newer hop varietals are not in it, but the concepts are still just as valid today as 20 yrs ago. Ray has been threatening an update for a while, but the Cicerone program has taken up all of his time, I think.

Good luck and ask away. We've all been there.
HTH-

[CHBKorea]

Ozwald: Thanks for noticing the typo (Freudian slip?), I guess I'm committed at this point to lamb for dinner that night The turnaround on new orders is about to get stupidly long (APO starts sucking real soon now), so I'm pretty nearly stuck on the hops in the kits. I may take BDawg's suggestion and gut all the kits for ingredient bingo

I think I want to start doing some of the SMASH (single malt - single hops) kits in the future to get a better feel for different hop flavors. I was considering ordering a SMASH extract kit from morebeer and then splitting the batch with 5 different hops (envisioning splitting the batch into 4 or 5 - 1 gallon boils and hopping spearately for 1 gal ferments - how masochistic is that?)


BDawg: Thanks for the feedback; yeah, I think the bug bit hard. I've kindled both books but I probably won't read them until this weekend because my other two fermenters came in today, and I'm fighing the urge to brew before I go to sleep (I hate early morning meetings)

I hadn't thought of just chopping the kits and using them as raw ingredients. That might be more fun than waiting and ordering

One other ? before I hit the sack...

I created a brewtility account and loaded this recipe up; there are minor differences from what brew target reported (brew target simply selected because it was in repository). The largest recipe difference is in the calculated IBU; BrewTarget tells me the total for the brew is like 38.9 IBU, BT tells me 59.8. Looking at other recipes, I'm inclined to believe Brewtility more than BrewTarget, simply because 2 oz of a 6AA hops and .5 oz of a 5.3 should != IPA level hoppiness when I watch Bryon Adams fist fresh hops into a brew for like 90 minutes (brew & chop epi 14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6q0qhrgehs )...

How accurate do you find brewtility?

I did a google search of of brew target accuracy and most ppl think it's ok, I'm just confused about IBU computations. I'm not crazy yet about the super hoppiness of some brews, but want a moderate level of IPA hoppiness (a bit is good, too much kinda still sucks - most commercial IPAs are a touch -just a touch- on the "too hoppy" side for me).

Thanks to everyone (both of you) for the help and tolerance of my newbishness

[CHBKorea]

11/02/2014: Today was a hip-hoppity brewday, I did a 5.5 gallon partial mash Oatmeal stout and this FrankenBrew which was the combination of (2) TrueBrew kits.

1417: Started heating 2.5 gallons in my stock pot. Tossed Crystal 60 in in muslin bag.

1434: Hit 150, started 30 min. C60 steep.

1500: Ended steep earlyIinconvenient timing for oatmeal stout and I care more for that), started heating towards 170. Pull C60 @165F. Added 3.3 lbs of Munton's Hopped light LME (17-31 EBU) and 2 lbs of Muntons light DME.

1528: Boil Hit. Added 1 oz 6.5 AA Cascade as a bittering addition @1531.

1544: Added 1 oz 5.3 AA Willamette.

1559: Added 1 oz 4.8 AA Willamette.

1616: Added 3.3 lbs of Munton's LME, 2 Lbs of Munton's Light DME, a servomyces and a whirlfloc.

waited for boil then let go for 15 more minutes, flameout @ 1635.

Tossed into sink to cool, eventually added chiller after other brew done and chilled.

Topped off to 5.5 Gallons with chilled distilled water. Pitched 2 packets of Munton's yeast and a packet of Safale US-05 for good measure (is a biggish brew) at 65F, 5.5 Gal OG 18.8 P/1.073 (ATC adjusted refracto).

It's bubbling @ 1700. For the next two days, it bubbles insanely. My bedroom smells like a rotting fruitish yeast orgy between this and the other bucket. This morning, I woke up with room at 62F, fermometer reading 76F. Cooled room to 58F, put a wet tshirt on bucket and cooled with a fan. Tonight it's starting to slow and is @70F in bucket, room at 58F. Hopefully I didn't spoil it. I knew yeast could be exothermic, but that was a little ridiculous.

Will update with tasting notes when I finish

EDIT: fixed typo in gravity

[CHBKorea]

OK, so I ended up bottling at ~10.0P (1.016 adjusted SG). This works out to a brew at 8.370 ABV. When I bottled it, was a bit like a mule kick, but I thought somehow adding carbonation would make it more fun.

I was wrong. .5L into the night (after .5L of the oatmeal I did at the same time) and I'm again done (while bottling I poured some out - was too much). Flavor is interestingly good, but there's a hint of "gonna donkey punch you" or "American History X shower scene" in the scent.

I enjoy the brew and think it's interesting, but I've found my upper limit on a sessionable, happy brew.

This is just above it

There's nothing wrong with mixing or adding up old extract kits for a drunk

Try it if you have some laying around


EDIT: DOH - use the damn corrected, not broken version of notes