Double IPA from kit

[onesoma]

Has anyone tried to brew a 'double' IPA from kits? Thinking of something like:

Better Brew India Pale Ale 2.1 Kgs Beer Kit
BH Light LME Liquid Malt Extract 1.5 Kg
Muntons Foil Pack Spraymalt Light 0.5 Kg
Dextrose 0.5Kg
25g Cascade 5 min boil with the 0.5Kg DME
25g Cascade dry hopped

Not sure if there'll be enough hops for the malt. Does anyone know a good online calculator for recipe formulation to calculate estimated starting gravity when using kits, LME, DME? I'd be aiming for something around 7.5%.

[Dunkel]

Try Brewmate   http://www.brewmate.net/   It's free, and I'm using it at the moment, because it looks a bit simpler to use than Beersmith.

[LordEoin]

the problem with both brewmate and beersmith is that neither of them have kits in their ingredients lists.
Try this http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/29655-kit-and-extract-beer-spreadsheet/page-20
Although you'll need to register to aussiehomebrewer to download it, and you'll need excel to run it.

[johnrm]

Isn't the point of kit that it IS the only ingredient?
Should Guinness and Blackcurrant be classed as a beer hack?

[irish_goat]

Should Guinness and Blackcurrant be classed as a beer hack?

"We don't do cocktails". 

[Taf]

If you are looking to get into double IPA territory, ideally you would have 3 or 4 times the amounts of hops you are planning to use, in order to compliment a strenght of 7.5%, but then I am a bit of a hophead! You could probably do with doing more than a 5 minute boil as well, but I'm not sure how much existing bitterness the kit would have. I would overdo the hops, rather than underdo them, as they will mellow with time, and at that strength it would need a bit of conditioning time.

[Garry]

the problem with both brewmate and beersmith is that neither of them have kits in their ingredients lists.
Try this http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/29655-kit-and-extract-beer-spreadsheet/page-20
Although you'll need to register to aussiehomebrewer to download it, and you'll need excel to run it.

Great find. That's a very useful spreadsheet. 

[LordEoin]

Isn't the point of kit that it IS the only ingredient?

I wouldn't say so. In my eyes, the point of a kit is that i can avoid wasting my day mashing and boiling.
Kit+kilo will make beer, but adding other ingredients will make great beer

If you are looking to get into double IPA territory, ideally you would have 3 or 4 times the amounts of hops you are planning to use, in order to compliment a strenght of 7.5%, but then I am a bit of a hophead! You could probably do with doing more than a 5 minute boil as well, but I'm not sure how much existing bitterness the kit would have.

You hop monster Taf! 


But the man's got a point. Double the hops (100g) should be fine. It's cascade so it should carry well, but yeah maybe 30g@15min, 30g@5min, 40g dryhop. Not sure, if you'd need/want a longer boil addition for extra bittering (depends on your taste)
why not have 2 varieties? like cascade and chinook, or my current favorite cascade and Bramling Cross.

The IBU guessing is why I prefer Coopers' Kits, they provide a kit goop spec (eg coopers IPA = Weight - 1.7kg, Colour - 230EBC, Bitterness - 710IBU) which you can translate to the final beer with "Kit IBU x volume in Liters / Brew volume = Brewed IBU" (some say about 20% of the IBU is lost in fermentation, but I'm not sure how true this is. Coopers say it's not)

Great find. That's a very useful spreadsheet. 

yeah, it's epic. Use it wisely!