Coopers APA - Dual Hopped

[Monkeybrew]

This brew is a bit of a bitsa, and is made up from hops and ingredients that I had in stock!

North to South Pale Ale

Ingredients
Coopers Australian Pale Ale 1.7kg
500g of Extra Light DME
100g of left over Brewing Sugar
200g of left over Carapils crushed grains (EBC 5)
Czech Saaz Hops - 3.5% Alpha
New Zealand Nelson Sauvin Hops - 12.6% Alpha
Kit Yeast (Ale/Lager)

The Brew
I steeped the 200g of Carapils in 3 litres of boiled water for 30 mins, removed the grains and then added 2 litres of cold water to the wort.

I then emptied the 500g of DME and 100g of brewing sugar into my 11L stockpot and then poured the warm wort in and dissolved the dry ingredients.

This was then brought back to the boil and then time to add some hops-

10g of Saaz -30 min boil
10g of Nelson Sauvin - 30 min boil
10g of Saaz - 15 min boil
10g of Nelson Sauvin - 15 min boil
5g of Saaz - 5 min boil
5g of Nelson Sauvin - 5 min boil
10g of Nelson Sauvin - Steeped at flameout for 15 mins

After straining all of the hops out, I continued to make up the kit with my hopped wort and topped up to 20L (OG - 1.036) and pitched the yeast at 22C.

It has been fermenting in my Brewfridge at 18-19C for 5 days, and I will check the gravity on day 7, and then rack into a clean FV, taste a sample, and then maybe dry hop with the remaining 25g of NS depending on hop flavour

My recipe and hop schedule are all guess work, but I felt like taking a gamble so fingers crossed

[MikeMarcus]

How did it turn out?

[Monkeybrew]

How did it turn out?

Not so good tbh, I kept waiting and waiting for it to improve, but that didn't happen!

Too many hops, too much bitterness and not enough malt backbone

I learnt a hard lesson with this brew, as it ended up down the sink because it was just not enjoyable.

MB

[MikeMarcus]

Shame. Do you think Nelson and Saaz would play well together if done differently?

[twentyfootwilf]

Isn't it surprising just how much malt can be added to a kit when adding extra hop flavour,however getting the balance right can be difficult. I had a recent brew go just the opposite way it turned out just a sweet horrible dark ale with absolutely no hop bitterness or flavour whatsoever so I got rid of it, poured it all around my tomato plants (bloody well killed 4 of them too)

[Monkeybrew]

Shame. Do you think Nelson and Saaz would play well together if done differently?

Well I can't really answer that, as I binned it, but I obviously thought they would be good together.

Have you used Nelson before?

[Monkeybrew]

Isn't it surprising just how much malt can be added to a kit when adding extra hop flavour,however getting the balance right can be difficult. I had a recent brew go just the opposite way it turned out just a sweet horrible dark ale with absolutely no hop bitterness or flavour whatsoever so I got rid of it, poured it all around my tomato plants (bloody well killed 4 of them too)

Lol about the tomatoes!

I do smile when I sit here and look at my recipe for that brew, I'm by no means an expert now, but it's now so obvious why the brew turned to sh!t.

Too many hops, especially the powerful high alpha NS, and my hop schedule was also all over the place too.

And as for the almost complete lack of malt and low ABV, just shouts out as an unbalanced brew to me now

As you so rightly say, finding the correct balance between hop additions and malt flavour/body with a kit adaptation is a tricky one. So often with hops, less is more.