Coopers Real Ale results

So after deciding to make beer, reading, reading reading and asking a ton of questions on here I ended up with a propane burner, Huge pot 20qt, a coopers real ale KIT, some dextrose, glass damijohns I use for wine and a sunny day, I decided to make beer.

After noting how sanitation is of the upmost concern, I was a bit nervous because my father lol did some funny things. used a piece of lumber to stir my wort, mouth siphoned etc etc but the beer turned out great.

I ended up boiling a no boil kit and adding hops to a already hopped malt extract without knowing any the better. I used dextrose because the idiot at the store convinced me not to use DME which I had planned on using lol.

Well after 14 days in primary at around 65 temp, and 14 days in bottle at the same temp I ended up with what I think is a great beer!!



It tastes great, the after taste is a bit bitter but I think it may mellow over some time and blend into the beer. Either way love drinking it now. Great aroma as well.

well done on making your first beer. That's how I started, with the coopers kit and the dextrose and now a year on I find it hard to drink the stuff. Not because its that bad but because the beers I can make now are at least 10 times better! Read as much as you can on here and learn from your mistakes and you will be amazed at what you will accomplish, I know that to a new brewer the thought of making something better than propper commercial breweries seems far fetched but Ive already had a few batches were seasoned beer drinkers cant pick the HB! Stick with it and you will have a great time, the journeys only just begun!

that post was supposed to encourage not sound condescending

I remember how excited me and the mrs got when we first tried our Coopers Real Ale and realised we had created beer. One of the proudest moments of my life!

No worries bud, I knew going into this my first brew would be lacking. Mostly due to the lack of options I found when I went to a store whose website showed a HUGE selection.

Either way beer turned out great and probably only get better. Already started a few other brews just wanted to share this with the people who helped make it happen.

yeah well you've broken your cherry now so you will be well on your way. Just a word of advice, I don't know why the guy at the store didnt want you to use DME (maybe ask him in case he had a good reason) but if he doesnt know what he is talking about then I would ask on here first and go with what the guys on here recommend, they certainly know their stuff and have helped out novices like me many a time in the past Playing around with hops like you said is a good way to get the mad scientist in you intrigued but from the sounds of it you will have no troubles in that area.

Happy brewing

It only gets better with time! I got inspiration from your original post and brewed the same recipe with the pre hopped DME. I bottled it Saturday, and I'm going to try to leave it undisturbed for a month. I still have 2 bottles of the original batch left (I think it's been close to three months in the bottle). I may just have to crack one of those open this week.

Wow, i hope I can hold on to some for 3 months to see the difference

The bottle conditioning is freaky! I've got a batch that tasted like ass after three weeks. I tried one after 5 weeks, and it aint half bad.

Yeah beer certainly improves with time, the only way I find of getting beer to age is to either cut down drinking (physically impossible) or to up your production. Id recommend getting as many bottles/kegs as you can as quick as you can (you will end up buying them anyway) and brew as much as possible. We've got about 30 dozen 750mL bottles now and were just filling them up. I've got some beers down the bottom of their that are a good three months now and judging by how they were improving before i buried them, they should be mellowing nicely. Another option of course is to buy beer from the shop and use those bottles, also keeping the drinking of HB down, when you start drinking your own beer though I know its hard to buy from the shop for a while

That's great advice! I just bought a second bucket a week ago to up my production!

I have like 15 empty damijohns and a monster 20Qt pot. My problem is that I dont want to use regular beer bottles and cap, they are too small and I dont have a capper.

So I used 1litre P.E.T. bottles but the suckers are expensive! lol I have considered using a few 2litre pop bottles but I dunnno abou that.

I use 2 litre pop bottles. Works out alright. The only bad thing is you have to drink them within a couple days after opening them.

nallanrex said:

I use 2 litre pop bottles. Works out alright. The only bad thing is you have to drink them within a couple days after opening them.

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sorry what was the bad part?...

I brewed a Cooper's Real Ale about a year ago. I do 2.5 gallon batches so I had two shots at it. On the second one I dry hopped some Cascade and everybody said they liked it a lot better.

the kits normally will benefit from a few additions here and there, its a good way to get into playing around with different hops and malts. Once your at that stage though I would highly recommend designing recipes of your own as the learning curve is considerably steeper.