Improving Alcohol Content: Cooper's Draught Beer Kit

I got this kit because after brewing 3 decent beers from cooper's (stout, lager, bitter english) I wanted to make something that tasted more like "commercial beer," to see what kind of results I could get. I just started my first batch last night. But now on my 2nd batch I want to try and increase the alcohol content.

With the original batch you mix in: the wort, boiling water, and Cooper's brew enhancer 1 (4.2% alcohol by volume).

So to increase the alcohol content on my next batch I ordered an exra brew enhancer 1 (1 kg each) to mix in.

How will this affect my alcohol content if I mix 2 kgs of brew enhancer instead 1? I'm lookin for around 6% (ABV) or slightly lower (but higher is fine).

The best way to increase the alcohol content in a beer is to buy a kit or brew a recipe that is designed for the alcohol level that you desire.

Adding sugar will boost the alcohol level but will also thin out and dry out the beer. Not often a good thing.

What exactly is a brew enhancer? I'd say, look up the recipes for what you'relooking for and the abv. Start making your own recipes/kits. I have done this for my last 3 brews, and I've done 4 total.

Be 1= 600g dextrose. 400g maltodextrine Be 2= 250g dme. 250g maltodextrine. 500g dextrose.

IMO you would be better off with be2 and 500g of dme.. If using Coopers boxed ingredients. Maybe a few hundred extra grams of dextrose if you want to bump up the alcohol.

unionrdr said:

Add a 3lb bag of plain DME & 1 box BE2 with 2oz of flavor hops to balance it out. That give a lighter beer with a bit more abv. See my reipes for how.

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This is probably a little closer to what you want to do. I've been screwing around with the Coopers IPA kit a little trying to develop an easy to brew house IPA that I can keep in stock. I took the first batch to my last club meeting and no one was complaining about it or even thinking it was an extract batch let alone a Coopers can. With two kids and little time to brew, I'm only able to brew all-grain about half the time. If not for doing the occasional extract/steeping kit on my stove, sometimes easier not to have to drag out that burner, or even a 10 minute DME boil with Coopers kit, I'd have a lot less beer around.

So what would happen if I double every ingredient but keep the same amount of water

Brenton011 said:

So what would happen if I double every ingredient but keep the same amount of water

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Ideally, it will double the alcohol level.

The reason it might not is, you never know how well it will attenuate. If the yeast doesn't do the job - and this can be a risk for high alcohol beers - then you will not get twice the ABV. Just doubling the amount of yeast might not suffice.

This is where some added sugar helps. It's easier to ferment, so you could almost double the extract, but fill in with some table sugar.

I just bought one of these and are looking to do the same thing - a nice-tasting, cheap, easy, repeatable house brew that comes out at 5-6%. I like to do extract brews in between all-grain brews since it's less work and I can do them in a lunch hour.

I have been toucanning the Coopers kits (ie 2 cans in 23 litres with no sugars) but I don't really like the bitterness this gives. The draught is approx 23 IBUs according to the Beersmith file I downloaded and presumably that's all bittering additions. If you double up on that and get 40 something IBUs, it's a bit much if none of that is flavour/aroma hops.

But at the other end of the scale I think 1kg of simple sugars is too much unless you like watery beer. So I'm making a few compromises to meet in the middle, but also focusing on keeping the cost down (DME is expensive where I live).

- Change the volume from 23 litres to 18 litres
- Add 500g of Coopers brewing sugar (which means 400g dextrose, 100g maltodextrine)
- Add 1kg of Ale malt - I can mash this in the slow-cooker on a temperature controller, set-and-forget, I happen to have a big sack of ale malt otherwise use 300g DME instead
- Boil for 20 mins. 10g of Cascade at 20 mins and 10g at 10 mins.
- Ferment with either w34/70 lager yeast or us-05 ale yeast. I have jars of these in the fridge. I'll probably use the lager yeast since I'm not in a hurry.

This ends up with 15% of the grist as simple sugars and won't have as much bittering hops as a toucan recipe. More like a 1.5-can in that regard. Target gravity is 1.051 for 5.4% ABV with 34 IBU.

I do recommend using a proper yeast instead of the one that comes with the kit. It doesn't really add much to the cost since you can reuse the yeast slurry from previous batches, and I think it does a lot to improve the flavour.

I did a side-by-side test of rehydrated Cooper's ale yeast (6g packet) against US-05. The Cooper's was every bit as vigorous a fermenter. It's a high flocculation yeast that's derived from English, possibly wit bred. Gives a bit of non-descript fruity esters like English yeasts, & is best between 65-69F by my experiences. Midwest & NB also carry the Cooper's ale yeast in 15g packets that're lot fresher than the ones in the false-lids of their malt cans.