Help me build a quick Christmas Stout recipe from Coopers kits.

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CarnellSitka

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I would really love to have a stout kegged for Xmas/Winter. I am really only comfortable with Liquid extract kits like those provided by Coopers.

Ideally i would love to brew something like this http://www.coopers.com.au/the-brewers-guild/how-to-brew/strong/russian-imperial-stout

but the conditioning time of 3 months sounds too long so what could i brew instead?

I wanted to do an imperial stout and add some vanilla in secondary for a fairly simple Imperial Vanilla Stout but would be pleased with even a stout around 6-7%

I am thinking of throwing together either two Coopers Stout kits, or even 2 black rock stout kits as i have access to those brands, However i wonder if it might be more interesting if i mixed maybe a stout and a dark ale.

At this point i am not sure what to do, should i mix dry malt extract and dextrose, use only dry malt extract? what kind how much?

i plan to add real vanilla beans to secondary what kind, how much?

I hope to keg in the first week of december, what would be a good way to carbonate.

Sorry if this is not the format or the right place for questions like this im still new to the forums.
 
Used the Cooper's Brewmaster dry Irish stout kit a while back. Combined with 1.5 kg of Cooper's dark LME, 750gr dark brown sugar and hopped with 1/2 Oz Nugget for a 40 minute bittering boil and a 1/2 Oz of Cascade for aroma and flavour in the last 10 minutes of the boil. Turned out pretty damn good.:mug:

Edited to correct LME/sugar weights.
 
Im in Canada so i'm not crazy about ordering a kit of the internet especially when i think i am little short of time.

We do have a really good home brew shop in Vancouver which offers Black rock kits, and i am also able to get coopers from the grocery, that why i wonder about those two.
 
Used the Cooper's Brewmaster dry Irish stout kit a while back. Combined with a 1kg of Cooper's dark LME, 500gr dark brown sugar and hopped with 1/2 Oz Nugget for a 40 minute bittering boil and a 1/2 Oz of Cascade for aroma and flavour in the last 10 minutes of the boil. Turned out pretty damn good.:mug:

I cant seem to find any coopers branded LME, is coopers dark LME just a branded version? Can i use any good quality LME?

When would i add the brown sugar?

Do you mind explaining the hopping a bit more thoroughly, as a newbie i finding it a bit hard to follow as i have never in the past with the kits boiled anything except the initial litres of water.

As for the Vanilla still recommend adding in the secondary, Do i really need to double up on kits to get a full bodied 6-8% stout?

thanks for the help
 
I cant seem to find any coopers branded LME, is coopers dark LME just a branded version? Can i use any good quality LME?

Yes, any decent LME or DME will do the trick. DME might actually be a bit better.

When would i add the brown sugar?
Personally I just add the brown sugar at the beginning before I get to a boil.

Do you mind explaining the hopping a bit more thoroughly, as a newbie i finding it a bit hard to follow as i have never in the past with the kits boiled anything except the initial litres of water.

I add sugar, recently also adding my DME, at the beginning then bring to a boil. Make first addition of hops (bittering addition) and start the clock. A 60 minute boil with your bittering hops and then you can make other additions as you see fit, depending on how you want the hop profile of your beer to turn out. I frequently do just a 15 or 10 minute flavour/aroma hop addition (meaning 15 or 10 minutes from the time you turn off the gas/electricity and stop the boil) and then maybe a dry hop for the last week of primary.

As for the Vanilla still recommend adding in the secondary, Do i really need to double up on kits to get a full bodied 6-8% stout?

Never done a vanilla addition so not sure really but generally that kind of thing is done in secondary. Doubling up on the kits might get you 6 to 8% ABV and a rich, full bodied beer but might be a little out of balance somewhere. Too bitter, too rich, something just not quite right. That's why the instructions generally suggest using DME/LME/sugar to boost alcohol,body and flavour. Using two different kits may, or may not, have different hops clashing with each other, it's a bit of a gamble, although Cooper's is known to use pride of Ringwood hops but I'm not sure if this is across the whole range of kits or just specific ones.
 
Thanks for the awesome reply! My confusion with the hoping may lay in the fact that i generally heat the malt extract and throw it in my primary, then i mix with 4 litres of water i brought to boil. Then i add water/dex/dme til were at 19 litres. before pitching yeast.

Are you proposing, that i boil the lot and then cool it quickly?
 
Thanks for the awesome reply! My confusion with the hoping may lay in the fact that i generally heat the malt extract and throw it in my primary, then i mix with 4 litres of water i brought to boil. Then i add water/dex/dme til were at 19 litres. before pitching yeast.

Are you proposing, that i boil the lot and then cool it quickly?

I do a partial boil. Start with about 10 litres of water and add DME, sugar and bring to a boil then make bittering hop addition and start 60 minute countdown. 15 or 10 minutes to go, make the flavour/aroma hop addition. I usually add my kit can at flame out. Cool brew kettle of wort down in a water bath. Put 4 litres of cooled water in fermenter, pour wort into fermenter and top up to 20 litres with more cold water. aerate, pitch yeast.

Basic and simplified but has turned out some pretty good beers for me.:mug:
 
Do a little reading up on hop varieties, flavours, aromas and such, and hop schedules, if you can. This will help you determine how to hop your brews. Using a kit can you might only want to do a 40 minute bittering boil, or more or less, it just depends on your tastes, the alpha acid level of the hop you are using, etc. Etc.

Then you could get into steeping some specialty grains and starting a brew off from there.

By the way, I've used the Black Rock East India IPA and New Zealand Company Bitter kit cans a few times and they've turned out some excellent beers for me. They use Nelson Sauvin hops and I've found that when I've used Nugget or Magnum for bittering, then Cascade, or Centennial for flavour/aroma they complemented the Nelson and the beer came out really good.:tank:
 
The recipe I posted, in the 4th post in this thread, was a 20 litre batch and had me hitting just under 6.5% after carbonation, I think.It was pretty good from 3 weeks after bottling but really came into its own a couple or three months after bottling.

I suppose you COULD make it with a lower volume of water or add more fermentables, then you'd need to hop accordingly, to get a higher ABV.
 
Maybe try-out some recipe calculators.

If you go to http://www.thescrewybrewer.com/p/brewing-tools-formulas.html you can find the Qbrew recipe calculator free for download

This one is quite good for calculating recipes where you are using Cooper's, muntons, Mr. Beer and some other pre-hopped HME kits. have a read through his instructions/explanation on various points like entering details for calculating the hop value for those kits.


Also

http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe

The beer calculus one is good for seeing how well balanced your recipe is with regards hop to malt ratios. It doesn't seem to assign any hop value to pre-hopped kit (Cooper's, Munton's etc.) additions though.
 
So i went and bought supplies, I went off Ogri's recipe

1 can Of Black Rock miners stout
8 pounds of Pale Malt extract
1 Pound of Dextrose
1 pound of nugget hops
1 pound of cascade hops
2 vanilla beans

this will be my most expensive brew to date!

A few more questions for those willing to help.

How hoppy will this beer be? i am not a fan of super hoppy american IPA's i prefer stouts and ales as i find them more balanced,

So should i use the two pounds? or maybe just 1?

When should i use the liquid Pale malt extract? In the boil or just throw it last before the yeast as it is fermentable?
 
Whoa!!!!!!!!!! Hold on a minute!!!!!!!! You wouldn't want to be using all of that list of ingredients in one 5 (US) gallon/19 litre brew:fro:

Try something like this

Your Black Rock, miner's stout kit can (1.70kg/3.75lbs)
+ 1.5 kg/3.3 lbs of liquid pale malt extract
+ 1 kg/2.2lbs dark brown sugar

21g / 3/4 Oz of Nugget at start of a 40 minute boil
14g / 1/2 Oz of Cascade at 10 minutes before flame out

This should be quite well balanced, as in not ridiculously hoppy and plenty malty.

Use about a couple of lbs of the liquid malt extract, mixed thoroughly with hot water whilst off the flame, you could also put the sugar in too, bring to a boil then make your (for example 40 minute) Bittering hop addition (3/4 Oz nugget @ 40 minutes), keep a slow rolling boil for 30 minutes then do your flavour/aroma hop addition (1/2 Oz Cascade @ 10 minutes). Boil for another 10 minutes then turn of the heat. Add the remainder of your liquid malt and the contents of your kit can. Cool, add to fermenter, aerate as vigorously as possible, top up to 19 litres total, pitch your yeast.

You'll probably be best making sure you have a decent yeast, and enough of it. Safale S-04 for example. The yeast that's under the lid of your Miner's stout kit can might not be in the best condition and there's only 5g, (or is it 7.5g? I'm not sure) of it so that would be far too little to ferment a batch of this size and volume of fermentables. My calculations sahow this coming out at somewhere near 6.8% ABV, an OG of 1.070 and an FG of 1.019. So even 1 sachet of S-04 might not be up to the task of carbonating the brew after fermentation, or being able to fully ferment this batch. Maybe someone else might be more knowledgeable and able to advise.

Here's another link that you might find valuable and insightful. I highly recommend you have, at least, a quick scan, better even a proper read, through that as it will be helpful for you.

Give us a shout if you need any other input.:mug:

Oh, and by the way, just so you know. The more fermentables you use and higher ABV you attain, the longer it'll take to condition and carb.
 
Here's what I get when entering that lot into beercalculus

http://hopville.com/recipe/1661785

Malt & Fermentables

%-- LB OZ------------------------------- °L PPG
40% 3 12 Black Rock Miners Stout Late Boil 83° 34

36% 3 4.91 Light/Pale Malt Extract Syrup Late Boil 5° 36

24% 2 3.27 Brown Sugar, Dark Boil 50° 46

9lb 4.15Oz


Specific Gravity
1.070 OG
(1.062 to 1.073)
17.1° Plato
1.019 FG
(1.016 to 1.020)
4.8° Plato
Measured Values
Edit Gravities / Edit Color
Color
32° SRM
63° EBC
Black
Hops

Usage Time OZ AA » IBU
boil 40 min 0.741 Nugget ~ pellet 13.0 » 42.6
boil 10 min 0.494 Cascade ~ pellet 5.5 » 5.0


Bitterness
47.6 IBU
ƒ: Tinseth
0 HBU
BU:GU
0.68
Yeast

Safale S-04 Dry Yeast
yeast in dry form with high flocculation and 73% attenuation
Alcohol
6.8% ABV
5.0% ABW
Calories
231
per 12 oz.
 
Hmmm this is interesting,

I was using the recommendations of the home brew store guy. He recommended using 8 pounds of the liquid malt, and a pound of dextrose to obtain 8% ish, but i had forgotten to tell him about the dark brown sugar.

As for the yeast, this store would stock it except its 25 minutes of city driving that i hate to get there. Would it kill the beer to use a couple packs of the coopers yeast that i can grab from the grocery store?
 
It wont let me show you the recipe i came up with but i got it up to 8.% by

Increasing Light Pale malt extract to: 4 lbs
Brown Sugar, Dark to: 3lbs

Nugget hop to 1 oz
Cascade to 0.7

and because i only have real access to coopers dry yeast i used that. does this make sense? It seems perfect to me.

on the scale its just left of centre towards hoppy/bitter, i've never used this scale so i don't know if this is ideal. But like i said im not a hop head.
 
if i use all the LME it should look like this http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe

is this really unbalanced?

The link only opens a blank recipe sheet in hopville.

You'll need to "save" the recipe so that it'll get a link-able url. In order to "save" it you'll have to register. Then, when you open your recipe, you'll be able to copy the url and paste it here.

Haven't got the foggiest regarding the u-wine places.

Was the lb of Cascade and lb of Nugget the LHBS guy's idea, too?:fro::drunk: You're going to become a lot more of a fan of hoppy beer by the time you've used that load up. You're going to be able to make another batch or two for pretty cheap, just the outlay for the kit cans, as a result. Try the Black Rock New Zealand company bitter and East India IPA kits with about the same recipe as this stout except use a standard, white, granulated sugar subbed for the brown sugar in the East India IPA.

The Cooper's yeast will do in a pinch and there'll be a packet under the lid of the Black Rock miner's stout too, but you will probably get a better result using a packet, or slightly more, of yeast like Safale US-05, Safale S-04 or Danstar Nottingham.

MrMalty.com calculates that you'd need about 17 gr = 1.4 packs of safale/danstar (11.5 g packs). In the end, it's up to you. It's your beer and you're going to be drinking/sharing it so do what you feel is best for you.

Personally I have no axe to grind with the Cooper's or Black Rock yeast but I have recently started adding the contents of those yeast packets into the boil with 10 minutes remaining as, I read on a thread here somewhere that this way, it becomes yeast nutrient and helps the main yeast you are using for fermentation.
 
I think you may have missed it but i increased it to achieve 8%

Increasing Light Pale malt extract to: 4 lbs
Brown Sugar, Dark to: 3lbs

Nugget hop to 1 oz
Cascade to 0.7

On the scale it is just left of centre towards hoppy/bitter, im not sure how this will tirn out but like i said im not a Hop Head by any means.

I got the ounce of hops from Irish stout recipe, or so i though lol, maybe i read it wrong.

LOL just realized i said i had a pound of each type of hope, i really have an ounce! Ha ha im not used to America's imperial system
 
It wont let me show you the recipe i came up with but i got it up to 8.% by

Increasing Light Pale malt extract to: 4 lbs
Brown Sugar, Dark to: 3lbs

Nugget hop to 1 oz
Cascade to 0.7

and because i only have real access to coopers dry yeast i used that. does this make sense? It seems perfect to me.

on the scale its just left of centre towards hoppy/bitter, i've never used this scale so i don't know if this is ideal. But like i said im not a hop head.

As mentioned before, the stronger your brew, the longer it'll take to condition and carb up, so if you're wanting this ready to drink, for it to be relatively well conditioned/carbed, at Christmas then it might be a better idea not to aim for an 8%er. Honestly, a 6.5 to 7% stout is going to have quite a good kick but the main thing is you want it to taste good. I've had an oatmeal stout that I got a bit adventurous with, it didn't attenuate fully, probably because I gave the yeast too much to deal with by throwing in too many fermentables so I'd get a strong brew. It ended up being a bit sweet and heavy and 7.5% or thereabouts. Made the one that you're loosely basing your present project on and it turned out really drinkable and enjoyable.
 
I think you may have missed it but i increased it to achieve 8%

Increasing Light Pale malt extract to: 4 lbs
Brown Sugar, Dark to: 3lbs

Nugget hop to 1 oz
Cascade to 0.7

On the scale it is just left of centre towards hoppy/bitter, im not sure how this will tirn out but like i said im not a Hop Head by any means.

I got the ounce of hops from Irish stout recipe, or so i though lol, maybe i read it wrong.


LOL just realized i said i had a pound of each type of hope, i really have an ounce! Ha ha im not used to America's imperial system

Yes, being close to middle of that scale will mean that your brew is well balanced. Neither too hoppy, nor too malty (sweet). Bear in mind that the kit can is hopped too so that's going to add some to the bitterness but overall it's not going to be anywhere near the APA style of hoppiness that you're none too fond of.

Glad to hear it's not 2lbs of hops you're sitting on, not that it'd be a bad thing if you're brewing a lot and I'm sure you'd soon become way more of a hophead than you are at present, it'd be a shame for them to go to waste.
 
You make really good points, i dont know why i got so obsessed with the 8% mark 6.5-7% is probably a better mark to hit. thanks again.

I started with the Mr Beer stuff and didn't make a single one at the standard 4.something%. Right off the bat I was adding LME, sugar and trying to hit 7.something to 8.something% brews, too:fro:

Think it must be the Vyking in me:ban::drunk::D:tank:
 
So an update! i brewed the beer this way.

1 hour Boil - 4 litre boil
15 mins in add 1 oz of nugget hops
Added 500 gram of brown sugar
500 gram of dextrose
4 pounds of liquid Pale malt
& Can of black rock stout in the early to mid part of the boil
@45 min of boil i added 0.7 oz of cascade hops

Primary 3 weeks
3 days in secondary with 2 cut vanilla beans


then bottle a twelve pack
and let sit in keg for another 8 days.

Well it is amazing all my craft buddies love it and say they would pay for it! It's complexed warming and leaves you with a slight taste of vanilla, it is exactly as i envisioned! it also somehow made it to 8%. I still have a good 2 gallons left! but people want more and i have to hide it!

I nearly named it Ogri stout for all your help but this semester was too painful.

Anyways thank you and here is a picture.

https://twitter.com/carnellsitka/status/283410371061112832/photo/1
 
Excellent!!!


Glad to hear it worked out well for you and that you managed to achieve your objective by Christmas.

BTW, What's with Putin?? Is it a Russian proletariat stout?? :fro:


Onwards and upwards from here, mate. I reckon you'll find your brews just get better and better:tank:
 
Putin, i'd like to think it was similar to a Russian imperial style, and originally it was a monster, so i asked what i thought was Russian and closest to a monster, Putin came to mind,
 
Says the video is unavailable at the moment. Will check it out later.

BTW, I take it you are going to let the 12 pack, you bottled, age for a while. If it tastes as good as it does now, imagine what a few more weeks, or even a few months, will do to improve flavours.:ban::mug:
 

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