Coopers kit question

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emoutal

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I am about to brew my second batch of beer, and I am already in the mood to experiment. The problem is that locally I can only get Coopers beer kits (Hopped LME). I am still trying to find a store in Canada that will ship DME, hops and yeast so that I can be more creative.

Anyways, the instructions say to use one can and some dextrose. I didn't like that idea, so I'm using two cans and no sugar. My first batch (bottled last week) was 1 can of Dark ale and 1 can of Bitter. This time I bought 1 can of Real Ale and 1 can of Bitter. I was wondering what I could do. I will boil for an hour. Can I add some of the extract near the end of the boil to get more hop aroma? Or does that theory go out the window with hopped LME.

Any thoughts would be great.
 
I would think taht you would only need to boil it all for about 10-15 minutes. The reason for the hour long boil is...
1. To allow for the bittering addition of hops, already done in your case.
2. To drive of any DMS precursers and get the protiens to coagulate, also already done in your case.

You really only need to sanitize that stuff in boiling water and it's good to go.
 
In general those kits are hopped more for bitterness than any aroma/flavor hops. I imagine your two can approach will be quite bitter. Even more so that you boiled it for an hour. I would stick to only boiling them for 10 minutes or so just to sanitize the LME.

Coopers does do unhopped LME as well as DME in 500g packs - can you get them where you are?
 
OK, maybe i'll boil for less this time. No luck with the unhopped LME or DME around here. This is what I'm stuck with.

Anyways, I tried some of the first batch while bottling and it tasted pretty good, except i could tell it was still "green". I can't wait to try it once it's ready.
 
What size is your fermenter? If it gets too bitter, add more water to the wort?
 
I am about to brew my second batch of beer, and I am already in the mood to experiment. The problem is that locally I can only get Coopers beer kits (Hopped LME). I am still trying to find a store in Canada that will ship DME, hops and yeast so that I can be more creative.
Hey emoutal -- welcome to HBT. Tell us what part of Canada you are from (and put it in your profile) so that we can help you find a homebrew shop that can supply you with your needs. There are lots of online shops here that will sell you DME, hops and yeast.

emoutal said:
Anyways, the instructions say to use one can and some dextrose. I didn't like that idea, so I'm using two cans and no sugar. My first batch (bottled last week) was 1 can of Dark ale and 1 can of Bitter. This time I bought 1 can of Real Ale and 1 can of Bitter. I was wondering what I could do. I will boil for an hour. Can I add some of the extract near the end of the boil to get more hop aroma? Or does that theory go out the window with hopped LME.
Personally, I would just make the kits as is. If you don't like the idea of adding sugar, just use less water to keep the gravity up (although you might get a bit more hop bitterness this way). I don't think adding dextrose is as bad as it sounds, but the only other alternative is to lay your hands on some DME.

Regarding hop aroma, if you want more just dry hop in the secondary. That's the preferred method.

If you can find them locally, ditch the Cooper's kits and try the kits from The Brewhouse, FestaBrew, or Barons. These are all no-boil, wort-in-a-bag, all-grain kits, and they are WAY better than the Coopers kits. Much less work, too.

PM me if you need some help finding a place to buy brewing stuff online.
 
Thanks FlyGuy. As I guess you saw from my other post, I'm living in Yellowknife now. The grocery store sells limited supplies (a lot more for wine making), but they do sell Barons kits. I made the false assumption that because it's no boil and easier, they would probably be not as good as coopers. Maybe i'll try them next. Except for the fact that I want to be able to experiment with different recipes.

But I do have some good news. I got impatient and tried one of my bottled beers (after only 1.5 weeks), and it's pretty good. Barely carbonated, and still a little green (but much less than my tasting during bottling), but still good. Not too bitter, although i do enjoy a bitter beer.
 
Actually I never boil the coppers kits - I dont now if its true but I red an article that by boiling it can kill some of the hoppieness - cause the hops are allready boiled in before the extract is canned. Im not 100% sure of that but i never boil the can extract. Im sure your beer will turn out great though - you must like dark ales eh?

In anycase let us know how it turns out - if you wanna have a look at how some of the coopers styles turn out check my webpage :)
 
I am in Burnaby, British Columbia and my next beer is going to be Coopers as its the only brand in the local stores. What the hell is LME nad DME stand for anyway. I searched these abbraviations on the net but still cant get an answer

Colm
 
Hey Colm - it stands for Liquid malt extracy - and Dry malt extract. On is a sypup that looks a little like molassis and one is powder.

Basically when you get your canned coopers kits it will say add sugar. But if you add some of the malt extract and just a bit of sugar it will taste better. If you are getting it from a homebrew shop they will likley have it. If you purchase it from a grocery store - they will likley just have the corn sugar.

Cheers
 
The grocery store sells limited supplies (a lot more for wine making), but they do sell Barons kits.

That's crazy. I was born in Yellowknife and lived there till I was 10. My sister went up recently and noticed that the Coop were selling beer and wine-making kits.

I can't speak from experience, but what I've heard is that the Baron's kits are better than the kits in a can. They aren't as concentrated and you don't have to add any sugar (only at bottling) which makes them a fuller product.

As for experimenting, if you can get hops or malt separately you can easily experiment with either the cans or concentrates (Baron's), but doing a mini-mash (for malt) and then boiling or even just boiling your top up water with hops (for hop bitterness, taste and aroma).
 
I am in Burnaby, British Columbia and my next beer is going to be Coopers as its the only brand in the local stores. What the hell is LME nad DME stand for anyway. I searched these abbraviations on the net but still cant get an answer.
Colm -- take a visit to Dan at Dan's Homebrewing Supplies in North Van (http://www.beermaking.ca/). He has a great shop and can set you up with some extract or all grain kits that will knock the socks off those Coopers kits.
 
No need to boil for an hour, brewers only do that to add bittering hops, the cans are already bittered with chemical hops. Also boiling darkens them too much.
I'd only do a 10 min boil to add flavour/aroma hops in 1 gal of water.
I've done 6 coopers kits so far, 1 lager can with dme, 1 pale ale with dme, 1 pale ale with a dextrose and dme mix to be closer to the original, one real ale with dme, and two separate stouts, one with dark liquid malt, one with a mixture of BE#2 and DDME.
All just had short boils with hops for flavour, one of the pale ales had a 20min boil and is too dark, the other had a 10 min boil and is the right colour.
edit: You're lucky that you are mixing an ale with the light bitter, I stuffed up that part.
I tried a toucan (that's what we call them here when you use two cans of prehopped extracts) with 2 x dark ales. That was so undrinkable because it was so bitter. Most people used the least hopped cans like you did (draught, lager) for the second can. I heard of good results with people doing the stout toucan so I tried the dark ale toucan, and I hate it. Maybe it just needs time, but right now I wish I never did it.
 
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