Coopers IPA Kit brew Question

Will be going my first brew. I have coopers IPA brewmaster selection Kit. 500grams of Muntons spraymalt light. 300-400 grams dextrose. 250grams of 2 row canada Malt.

First do these ingrediants go well together? Do i need more DME?

How long should I boil the extract, its pre hopped so I dont want to boil out any flavor

How crushed do the grains need to be? Also the women told me if the water temp for the grains is TOO hot it would leave a bad taste. What is the correct temp and how long should I tea bag em for? How much water do i need to steep the grains.

I have a large pot that can easily do a 5 gallon boil, also have outdoor propane burner that gets things heated quick.

I know im sort of all over the place here, but if someone could give me an outline of how they would go about using all these ingrediants that would help. I have done a kit boil with a friend but never used real grains or DME.



Thanks!

Here is what you need sir, it has everything from beginner to advanced brewing. I still reference this almost every brew day.http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/index.html

id like to also know

I am also confused if i need to steep, or mash? With this kind of grain. What kind of flavor will this grain release?

I am also confused,
1. Is the DME pre-hopped, I've never heard of this. Are you sure it's not LME?
2. If the grain is 2 row pale malt, it will need to be mashed to get anything from it. It will not add much flavor, 2row pale is a base malt mainly used to get the base beer/most fermentables.
3. Was this a pre-packaged kit? It looks wierd.
4. How big of batch are you making?
5. Is this a joke?

You need to mash the malt, if you want to use it. You can use it if you want, but it's not necessary.

The Coopers kit is a prehopped, no boil kit, so you don't want to boil it. You'd boil away all of the hops flavor and aroma. What I would do is not bother with the grains- that's a very small amount of grain and it won't bring anything to this brew. Save it for next time, when you have more grains to steep.

You can bring a gallon or so of water to a boil, and add the dextrose and the malt extract. Boil that for a couple of minutes to sanitize, let cool a bit, and then add it to the sanitized fermenter. Stir in the cooper's kit with a sanitized spoon, and then top up with cool water to the volume according to the kit. I think those kits are designed for 6 US gallons. Check the temperature, and keep it between 18-20C if you can. Add the yeast. Then, just cover with the lid and airlock. It should start fermenting in a day or two, and should finish up in about 5 days. Let it sit about 2 weeks, and then check the specific gravity with a hydrometer. It should be ready to bottle then.

Thanx Yooper,
Is there actually pre-hopped DME?

COLObrewer said:

Thanx Yooper,
Is there actually pre-hopped DME?

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Not that I know of. The Coopers kit is a prehopped LME kit, that requires some "add ins" like DME and dextrose. It's a small can, about 3.3 pounds, I believe. You either need two cans or need to add other fermentables in to make a 6 gallon batch.

Whew, I thought I was loosing it.

Wow ok, sorry if i wasnt clear im new to this.

Anyways I meant the LME is prehopped this has already been established.

I am disapointed about the grains, the women told me this was good for a 5 gallon batch? And would add flavor! This is ridiculous........

How much more would I need for it to be useful?

Also I know this is a no boil kit, but I heard its always best to do a boil if you can? So would boiling the LME totally remove all flavor? Even if I boil for like 15 mins?

Thanks.

love2brew said:

d for it to be useful?

Also I know this is a no boil kit, but I heard its always best to do a boil if you can? So would boiling the LME totally remove all flavor? Even if I boil for like 15 mins?

Thanks.

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There are many people who advise boiling no boil kits, but my understanding is the correct answer is not to. It wouldn't remove all the flavor, but it would remove a decent amount.

McGarnigle said:

There are many people who advise boiling no boil kits, but my understanding is the correct answer is not to. It wouldn't remove all the flavor, but it would remove a decent amount.

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Right. If it was a stout, boiling it would be ok. However, with an IPA you have aroma and flavor hops in there and so you won't want to boil it. Boiling hops in a "regular" beer kit (not the no-boil kit) is what makes the bittering. The longer the hops are boiled, the less flavor and aroma the hops will have. Anyway, so you don't want to boil this kit.

It's hard to take a no-boil kit, and add useful grains to it. You've got quite a mishmash there. A no-boil kit, extract, sugar, and grain that must be mashed. That's a tough group of ingredients to put together in a nice beer. That's why I said to skip the grains this time- the .5 pound or so is pretty meaningless, and would mean about a 2 hour process to make that grain usable in this kit.

For your next beer, you might want to get a "real" beer kit. You certainly seem to have enough knowledge and want-to behind you to make it happen. You could find a recipe (we have lots here on the forum) for a beer you want to make and buy the malt extract, hops, grains, and yeast separately and make a great beer. But to start with a no-boil kit is limiting. It'll still make a very drinkable beer, but is limited by the ingredients already in there.

Again thanks for your help. Im very disapointed with the half assed advice the store gave me. Believe me when i say it was half assed.. I can not even trust them enough to ask for advice on making a recipe which is what I want to do.

I was under the impression these kits could be modified, which they probably can, but not in the sense I thought. The no boil really sucks because I have invested in equipment in preparation to boil

Anyways, enough moaning. I guess ill make the best with what I have. Im in Canada by the way and the selection SUCKS

love2brew said:

Again thanks for your help. Im very disapointed with the half assed advice the store gave me. Believe me when i say it was half assed.. I can not even trust them enough to ask for advice on making a recipe which is what I want to do.

I was under the impression these kits could be modified, which they probably can, but not in the sense I thought. The no boil really sucks because I have invested in equipment in preparation to boil

Anyways, enough moaning. I guess ill make the best with what I have. Im in Canada by the way and the selection SUCKS

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Well what do you want to end up with? You can change the kit in a number of ways, but then it would not be what the kit is intended for, you could make it anything with different specialty grains, etc. The grain they gave you is base malt and it won't make much difference in such small quantities.

Keep on brewing my friend

love2brew said:

Again thanks for your help. Im very disapointed with the half assed advice the store gave me. Believe me when i say it was half assed.. I can not even trust them enough to ask for advice on making a recipe which is what I want to do.

I was under the impression these kits could be modified, which they probably can, but not in the sense I thought. The no boil really sucks because I have invested in equipment in preparation to boil

Anyways, enough moaning. I guess ill make the best with what I have. Im in Canada by the way and the selection SUCKS

Click to expand...

There are ways to modify the extract with Coopers. I've done a bit of research since I just made my first beer myself (with the help of the Coopers that is, which makes it pretty damn easy if you ask me). Anyway, I'm easing myself into PG then AG but for now I'm satisfied trying a little bit more than just making the extract.

The coopers website has a number of recipes, and at some point I found this pdf file that contains all sorts of interesting recipes.

So there are ways to experiment with it, although once you get outside of extract there's a lot more you can do.

EDIT: Hey it's my first post. Hey everybody!

crombie said:

There are ways to modify the extract with Coopers. I've done a bit of research since I just made my first beer myself (with the help of the Coopers that is, which makes it pretty damn easy if you ask me). Anyway, I'm easing myself into PG then AG but for now I'm satisfied trying a little bit more than just making the extract.

The coopers website has a number of recipes, and at some point I found this pdf file that contains all sorts of interesting recipes.

So there are ways to experiment with it, although once you get outside of extract there's a lot more you can do.

EDIT: Hey it's my first post. Hey everybody!

Click to expand...

Looking at a couple recipes, it looks like you steep/mash/boil first, then add the hopped extract post-boil. You'd add additional hops before the extract.

The PDF recipes seem to abide the advice of no boiling the no boil kits, but mostly make use of Cooper's unhopped extract.
BTW: IMO, that's one annoying Cooper's website (age confirm, lots of flash, etc.)

McGarnigle said:

Looking at a couple recipes, it looks like you steep/mash/boil first, then add the hopped extract post-boil. You'd add additional hops before the extract.

The PDF recipes seem to abide the advice of no boiling the no boil kits, but mostly make use of Cooper's unhopped extract.
BTW: IMO, that's one annoying Cooper's website (age confirm, lots of flash, etc.)

Click to expand...

Yeah the PDF is mostly the unhopped extract, there are a few from the no boil kits as well (towards the bottom I believe).

Also, I forgot about this (food n beer) recipe list from makebeer.net, which is an American importer of Coopers.

Yeah that flash is annoying btw. Same with the age confirm. There's no point to it either because all the text is actual text, not in the flash window.