My wife and I just opened the first bottles of our first batch, an extract-based milk stout, and it turned out spot on to our great satisfaction. She's fastidious as hell, me not so much, but I'm trying. Our second batch is a Brewer's Best kit, the rye pale ale, which we'll be brewing next weekend. I was hoping someone could offer some some advice on tweaking the hops to turn up the volume a fair amount. We're both enthusiastic hopheads; ideally I'd like to make this vividly hoppy in both taste and aroma while not making it ridiculously bitter. The schedule: 1oz Columbus, boil 40 mins, add remaining LME, boil 5 mins 1oz Citra, boil 15 mins, terminate boil Add 2oz Cascade pellets dry hopped after racking to secondary Fire away. TIA.
Boil your columbus for 60 min and move your Citra to 5 minutes and I think you will have what you are looking for.
I would add 1 more oz of Citra if you want to bump it up. Like premierpro said move the columbus back to 60 min. Depending on the recipe 2 oz of citra in the boil might be a bit much so you could do the following. 1oz Columbus- 60Min .5oz Citra and .5oz Cascade 5 Min .5oz Citra and .5oz Cascade 0 Min 1oz Citra and 1oz Cascade Dry hop
My suggestion is not related to your hop schedule, rather the need for note taking. Just about everyone says to do this, but for me it was years before I got serious. Once brewing gets more frequent I find it hard to remember many of the details (good and bad) about each brew session. Maybe your 20 minute hops didn't make it until 17 minutes, or your ferm temp was off (or spot on), or carbonation was too high/low . . . these are helpful tidbits to refine future sessions. As you start tweaking recipes it is nice to have a clear record of what you did last month or last year. My method is to print the recipe and that becomes my scorecard for that brew. I record all gravity readings, taste sessions, and any significant blunders made along the way. All very helpful when refining the next session. Good luck and congrats on a successful first brew.
i second Largo's advice. you will want to know what you did each time and some notes will make it possible. otherwise you'll be endlessly frustrated. an easy way to keep track of things is with software. beer calculus/hopville is easy to use but a bit buggy. there are a few others each with pros and cons. for a new brewer beer calculus is great. determining bitterness depends on alot of variables, the AA% of your hops being the obvious factor. boil time and wort density is very critical as well. a full wort boil is ideal. you can also follow the kit and hold back adding all of the extract until the last 5 minutes or so. late extract addition, less dense wort will allow more of the bitter oils to dissolve (you are basically trying to extract resins similar to a pine cone into water. the oily resin does not dissolve easily and less so if the wort is dense with sugar.) also, resist the urge to mess with around with kits. most kits have been tweaked very well already. if you really enjoy bitter/floral/hoppy etc beer you should try to buy the correct kit. brew the beer the best way you know how of course, just remember that it takes some time to get the hang of how everything interacts. good luck.
The only change I would suggest is to boil the Columbus for 60 minutes. The remainder of the hop schedule looks like you will achieve very good hop flavor/aroma. As regards the dry hopping there is absolutely no need to transfer to a secondary for this process. Just add your 2 ounces of Cascade to the primary after all signs of fermentation is complete (no more bubbling in your airlock). You should let the dry hops have a contact time of 7-14 days. Good luck with your Rye Pale Ale! Cheers!
