Should I follow the directions?(Cooper Kit)

Last year I found several good Home brewing equipment deals on Craig's List,
but for whatever reason I never got around to buying the ingredients to
make a batch of beer. One reason may be that the nearest home brew
store is well over a hundred miles from my house. A couple of months ago
my sister drove by a home brew store and decided to stop to buy a kit.

She ended up getting a Coopers Dark Ale( Hopped Beer Kit),2 Lbs of
Muntons Plain amber Malt Extract and 5 oz of corn sugar. The guy who
sold her the kit told her not to follow the directions if I wanted to make a
good batch of beer. He then provided her with some instructions on how to
make the batch. Unfortunately my sister would lose her rear end if it wasn't
tied on and she managed to misplace the directions. And the place is closed
down so she can't get another set of directions.

I've been digging through the posts on this board trying to find some info.
I lot of the posts deal with adding hops or otherwise tweaking the kit
to get a little different result. I've even checked on youtube to see if I
could find some info. I would appreciate it if some of you experts could
point me in the right direction. I have all of the equipment Carboy,buckets
etc.. I also done some other research on the net and the instructions
on the kit seem to be totally different from most of the brewing procedures.

Thanks

Tim

can you post the directions you do have?

I brewed these kits when I first got started years ago. The guy steered you in the right direction with the malt extract instead of 2.2 pounds of sugar. Brew according to directions, let ferment for 4 weeks at 68-73 degrees. The 5oz sugar is for bottling. The beer will turn out fine. It would be great if you had liquid yeast, but the pack will work for your first brew. Just be patient!

I've done a few coopers kits. I recommend trying to keep the temp even cooler, as it just comes out better for me. Coopers kit instructions are for 6 US gallons, and the coopers fermenter is 7.9 gallons. So if your fermenter is a smaller 6.5 gallon one, I'd recommend only mixing it up to 5 gallons.

Dont go by the 5 gallon mark on the bucket though, make sure you double check that and mark the real 5 gallon point. Bucket markings really stink, I dont know why they bother when they're so far off, lol. Mine was over a half gallon wrong.. big difference!

go ahead and follow the directions or not, Coopers kits make good beer even if you don't follow the instructions exactly

but stay pretty close to the instructions and it will turn out best till you get a few batches under your belt

only thing is, you don't need to ferment anywhere near as high a temp as the instructions say -- don't worry about going a few degrees cooler, beer will be better for it

the instructions
on the kit seem to be totally different from most of the brewing procedures.

Click to expand...

Logically - that makes sense. That would be why he said not to use them

I've never done one, but it sounds like a mini mash.

There is awhole forum on extract brewing here.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f37/

Do a little recreational reading.

Read:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/wh...where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/

Look up the definition for RDWHAHB

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Relax_Don't_Worry,_Have_a_Home_Brew


...it should be easy. First time is really educational - bet it makes great beer.

well, I often do "cupboard' brews - kinda mix what I have in my garage.

As for your stuff - it will make really nice beer - do the prep, sanitize stuff/ect, boil 1 gallon (I think its somewhat close to 2.2liters) of water, have kettle with boiling water ready - toss your 2 pounds of muntons into fermenter, add galon of boiling water, swirl it around to dissolve malt extract, add heated coopers can, fill it with boiling water from kettle, swirl to get it all out, toss into fermenter, stir vigorously, top it to 23l (6us gallons?) of cool water, if you can, try make a "waterfall" to aerate the wort. pitch yeast if your temp is within 68-80F range, stir it a bit and that would be it.

leave corn sugar for priming!

edited:
balls, if 1us gallon is about 3.5 liters, then make your boiling water to half gallon! its soooooo confusing leaving the "normal" metric world!

....They've started trying to educate Americans on diet that like 50 grams of meat is an adequate amount of protien. Ithink in ounces. I'm at that awkward age 49.

Liters I can handle "it's a liter bit more than a quart".