Kit hacking Young's Harvest Yorkshire Bitter

[benji]

So I got Young's Harvest Yorkshire Bitter kit in Tesco today for 3.75, nice and cheap. I want to experiment a little with this kit, do you have any ideas what I can add to this

[LordEoin]

Anything you like!

I'd go with a little chocolate grain, some carapils and lots of fuggles/EKG.
maybe something like Kit + 1kg amber DME + (100g chocolate + 250g carapils/crystal/biscuit) steep + 25g fuggles 15 min + 25g fuggles dryhop
Kit yeast should be fine, or replace with danstar nottingham

I made a batch of this kit a few months ago and thought it was quite good.
€3.75 is a steal 

[benji]

Thanks for the reply, I'm a bit of a noob at this criac, I'm only on my 5th kit and I only started thinkering with the kits, I'm not sure about a lot of the things you mentioned, sounds a bit complicated, I was thinking of adding 2 or 3 ingredients and see how that goes

[Ciderhead]

Lord Eoin is the expert in this field, try dry hopping after your fermentation has finished, which on a bitter could be be a bit tricky to get a strong aroma.
Have your considered chocolate powder like bourneville or even expresso?
Any thoughts anyone else

[CARA]

Making a "hop tea" to replace the hot water addition is the easiest way to tinker kits for the newly converted

[LordEoin]

@ ciderhead: I was actually thinking about that for a stout. Coffee in particular after seeing a picture of the Franciscan Well's coffee porter.

@benji: Just like ciderhead says, once the foam on the brew thins out just add hops and leave it about another week.

Try this, it's super simple, cheap and worthwhile. It will add 'aroma' to your beer with very little effort.
If you want to keep it simple and clean, use a muslin bag.
Once fermentation is done, boil the empty bag to sterilize it, fill it with hops and weigh it down with a few sterilized marbles.
Chuck it in and leave it another week.

Try 30g of Cascade(citrusy) or Fuggles(earthy/woody). You wont be disappointed 

edit: just saw CARA's post. Yeah,  a hop tea would be good too. Just put the hops into about 2L of water off the boil, let it steep for 30 minutes, then strain into the FV.
You could also add some grain to the steep (eg 100g chocolate grain for roasty chocolate goodness and 250g carapils for body and head)

[benji]

Thanks for the reply's, I actually have some cascade hop pellets left over from a Cooper's IPA kit that I done a few weeks ago, I think I'll try 30g of hops and 100g of chocolate powder, I'll keep ye posted and let you know how it goes

[benji]

I also have 500g of dark spray malt left over from a Chocolate stout I done last week, could this work in the brew

[LordEoin]

For sure! I'd use the dark spraymalt and probably leave out the chocolate powder (but completely up to you)

[Damofto]

Picked up a couple of these last night myself, you can't really go wrong at that price.
I will definitely hack it with some grain and hops but was wondering if the Youngs yeast is any good or would I be better off using an Safale-S-04 I have?

[LordEoin]

You lot don't realise how lucky you are with your Tesco selling kits!!
I've never seen them in any tesco in cork.. 

The kit yeast is fine, but if there's a particular yeast you like and have, go for it

[Damofto]

Thanks I'll go with the kit yeast so.
My brother has just gotten into kit brewing too and I was telling him about the Tesco's offers, but like you he couldn't find anything down in Cork either. Strange the way it seems to vary from store to store.

[Blueshed]

any update on this lads, got one of these kits and plan on brewing it soon.

[Damofto]

Yes it turned out pretty well and it's long gone now.

I d'ont have my notes with me but if memory serves I steeped about 50g each of Amber and Aromatic malt and made a hop tea with 25g EKG, added 500g medium Spraymalt and 500g Dextrose, ended up with a tasty brew of around 4%

[brewerhooer]

Which Tesco is selling these kits and are they selling much else?