Coopers Lager Kit Question

I'm a complete beginner to home brewing and just bought the Coopers Microbrewery kit. I mostly drink hoppy beers like IPAs and American Style Pale Ales.

I'm on the fence with scrapping the Lager kit and just buying their IPA kit as I don't want 5 gallons of beer that I would not enjoy.

I've heard that I could add hops to it but I'm not entirely sure what kind of hops and at which stage to add them in.

Can anyone who has brewed the Lager kit per the instrutions comment on how the the end result tastes?

Is there any commercial beer that it is similar to? i.e. Fosters, Miller Lite, etc.

Hi, I brewed that and even have 1 bottle left. It was my first time and before I joined here, so I did it purely by the instructions. Plus based off of youtube videos like CraigTube's.

I really liked how the beer came out and after it had aged a couple of weeks in the bottle. And that was even fermenting in the mid 70's and bottling after only 8 days. I have my notes right here actually. Original gravity was 1040, final gravity was 1011. It was cidery when first bottled, but it disappeared completely after a short time in the bottle.

If you ferment it closer to mid 60's and leave it in there 2 weeks before bottling (and after checking the gravity to confirm it's done) it'll probably be better.

I liked the taste of it personally, but I havent had too many commercial beers to compare it to. But I would call it a nice beer to have cold, and you can easily have a few. It's not heavy, not too strong in anything. Which is why they include it in the kit in my opinion, since it should have a wide appeal.

I dont know any specific additions to that particular extract, but I did do a souped up Coopers Real Ale kit and took a gravity sample tonight and the sample tasted unreal. Try the search for coopers lager recipe or something like that.

edit: oh by the way, it actually makes 6 US gallons, and I ended up with more than I could fit in the bottles!

Yes, the Coopers kit was where I started. It's not a great lager by any means (nor a real lager), but most of the BMC folks who have tasted it say it's better than what they buy from the stores (not high praise, I know, but nevertheless). I'd say brew it. It does improve with age - I have a few bottles kicking around after a few months, and they're still getting better. Hard to describe the taste; it's not particularly clean or hoppy. Tastes kind of commercial but better. Worst case, you can always toss it all out and you gained some experience. I've brewed their IPA kit, btw, and it's alright; I thought much better than the lager the kit comes with.

N.

I say go ahead and brew it.

Ferment it cool (mid 60°'s) for about two weeks and then bottle it with corn sugar/dextrose (not table sugar). Let them condition at room temp in the bottle for 3 or 4 weeks and give em a try.

If you don't like the results, then you've at least got some valuable brewing experience. You can always give away beer to friends, family, etc.

Oh that reminds me, the kit comes with the coopers carbonation drops, which I used for the first brew. You'll notice when you check them out that sometimes you come across one that is misshapen or small. I tried to use all the similar sized ones to try to keep carbonation levels the same in each bottle. You get more than you need in the bag, so no worries there.

Thanks to all for all of the replies. Very helpful. Any additional replies are always welcome. I also received some suggestions from the Coopers Forum if anyone else is interested as well:

http://www.coopers.com.au/the-brewers-guild/talk-brewing?g=posts&t=1936

This is a total Noob question but would adding 1oz of Cascade Hop Pellets during the fermentation stage work or would it likely produce off flavors?

zyx345 said:

Thanks to all for all of the replies. Very helpful. Any additional replies are always welcome. I also received some suggestions from the Coopers Forum if anyone else is interested as well:

http://www.coopers.com.au/the-brewers-guild/talk-brewing?g=posts&t=1936

Click to expand...

The easiest thing to do is to dry hop with 2 oz. of your favorite aroma hop for 5 days. Add 2 oz. of hops (If you like IPAs, maybe use Cascade. If you want your beer to taste like a European Lager, use Saaz) to a Muslim bag or use cheese cloth. Drop this in the fermenter after the vigorous fermentation is complete (probably after 3 days). Keep you fermentation temperature below 70F to avoid cidery flavors.

The first and fourth beers I made were Coopers Lager kits. I made my first one according to the directions (1 week in primary, 2 weeks in bottle) and it had a major case of banana esters and cidery flavor. But that got a lot better over time, and I had a very drinkable beer.

By the time I made the same kit again, I had checked out this board and read Papazian and Palmer and learned more about technique, temp control, etc. 3 weeks in primary and 3 weeks in bottle made the Coopers Lager kit even better, and it too got better with age.

If you'd like more hop character, I second the opinion of dry hopping with an ounce or two of whatever hop you want. Cascade is a good all-around choice and easy to find. I wouldn't add more hops to the boil (if you boil it), since the extract is pre-hopped and adding more hops and boiling would probably give too much bitterness. As tomheff said, you can dry hop by adding directly to your Coopers fermenter, but you do want to wait until at least after active fermentation is complete or else the CO2 escaping will carry off a lot of hop aroma.

Incidentally, my favorite Coopers extract was the "Real Ale". In general, their extract recipes are not bad for starting out - I made 4 - and the starter kit is worth it just to get the fermenting vessel, IMHO. I bought 2 of 'em. :rockin:

Thanks again for all of the replies. Top notch.