feedback please

[cheech226]

i bought demon's nut brown ale kit and a pack of enhancer plus. my idea is to dissolve the enhancer and the can of ume into about 5 cu. of water. bring to boil and add about 1/4 to 1/2 oz fuggles. boil lightly for 20 min. remove the hops, then add the hme. add to my lbk that has a gallon of refrigerated water already in it, top off with refridge water to 2 gal. check temp, pitch s-04. how's this sound?

[mashani]

I'd say not to boil it for more than 5 minutes, and ideally instead just bring it up near or just to the boiling point, immediately turn off the heat, throw in the hops. Let it sit with a lid on for however long you like. Then cool.

That will be more likely to keep it closer to "nut brown" vs. stout colored because the extracts will darken rapidly when boiled if they are not very fresh.

It will also help not jack up the bitterness very much (even boiling the HME without adding hops can do this because there are some late hop addition bits still in many of them and/or some non-isomerized compounds that will become so and add to the bitterness) which you don't want in that kind of beer.

[Kealia]

To mashani's point - you CAN do this, but what is your end-goal? What are you looking for in terms of color, taste, bitterness, etc.?

[HerbMeowing]

fuggles be mainly an aroma hop. boiling for 20 minutes will contribute flavor more so than aroma if that's what you want.

i'd be more inclined to dry hop with the 1/2z ...

[cheech226]

fuggles be mainly an aroma hop. boiling for 20 minutes will contribute flavor more so than aroma if that's what you want.

i'd be more inclined to dry hop with the 1/2z ...

that's what i am after, flavor. and to experiment a little. i wasn't going to add the can of hme until after the boil. in the past i've made a few batches of mb churchill nut brown, when it was just a big can of hme. sadly it's no longer sold that way. i did dry hop a batch with 1/2 oz styrian hops once. it was the best beer i ever made. i want to try something different, experiment. so you think 10 min boil isn't enough? i could do 20.

[cheech226]

i decided to just make the nut brown ale as is with no hop addition. i did put a bag of demon's brewing enhancer plus in to get the abv up a bit. i pitched ~7 g. of s-04 yeast for my 2 gal. batch. i want to see how it tastes on it's own before tweaking the kit. i do want to thank y'all for the input!