Improving Coopers Draught kit

I've brewed five coopers kits so far and would like to take my next kit a notch up. I would like to add some grains and hops to my kit. I've been reading for an hour or so and I'm still not quite sure what types of grains or hops would work with this kit.

I've come up with a shortlist:

Malts:
- 2 Row Pale Malt (Gambrinus)
- Pilsner Malt (Gambrinus)
- Crystal Malt 20L < If possible I would like to combine this with one of the above

Hops:
- Golding (U.S.)
- Northern Brewer (GR)
- Saaz (US)

Any help would be great!

(I'm from Western Canada so I'll be ordering from this place online: http://www.hopdawgs.ca/index.php/ingredients)

How did you brew the previous Coopers? If you just added sugar than you could sub 2/3's of the sugar with malt extract. I don't suggest all malt because I've found it will finish rather sweet and some sugar will help dry it.

I was adding corn sugar as per the instructions.

Bump: I think my initial question is a bit confusing.

If you had a Coopers Draught kit, what would you add:

2 Row Pale Malt, Pilsner Malt or Crystal Malt 20L for Malt?

and

Golding, Northern Brewer or Saaz Hops?

Or a different Malt/Hop combination?

I brewed Coopers Original Draught with tin of amber LME (1.5kg can) and 500g brewing sugar using kit yeast and fermenting at 70F. Turned out lovely but needed about month in bottles to get really really good! Color is great and it has nice malty taste with bitter ending.

this is how it looks:

I'm currently doing the samething. I made a 2.5 gallon mash tun earlier this year for some mini-mashes and since then have picked up a lot of Coopers kits that were on sale. I like the Coopers because they can actually make some good beer and I don't always want to invest the time to do an all grain just so I have some beer on hand. But even when making them with all malt extract the flavors don't pop like an all grain. I made a Coopers Schwartzbier inspired by a lagering thread.

Tomorrow I'm going to do another with Coopers Traditional Draught kit.


5.25 gallons
Coopers Premium Series Traditional Draught
2.5 lbs Pilsener
1 lb Munich
1 lb Wheat


I'm holding back on any crystal until I see how it attenuates and the overall sweetness.


I would say a safe way to bump up the Original Series Draught is mashing 2kg of Pale malt for a 23 liter batch. You can sub 500g with Munich if you can get it. If you want to add some crystal personally I would start with 125-250g.


For hops I would use Golding to push the beer for more of an English flavor. The Original Series Kits comes with Coopers house yeast which is actually a nice English strain. Together it should make for a nice English ale.

That Draught looks sweet!

PT Ray, thanks, I'm going to do something similar to what you posted there. I see what you mean about sweetness now.

Edit: Is there any point to try adding any hops?

It all depends what you are expecting. If you wanted to... you could any or all of those different malts and hops. Another place to experiment is with yeast.

pyrobrew said:

Is there any point to try adding any hops?

Click to expand...

I haven't had much luck in getting my hop additions to really come through. I'm only using 2 gallons to boil them so I'm sure it's going to take a larger boil. I'm not willing to go that far. I have a lot of hops that I bought last year and I'm trying to use them up. If it wasn't for that I probably wouldn't bother.

Well my only thoughts are that the Coopers extract-only kits are prehopped. If you're going to add your own hops, why not just buy Liquid Malt Extract which is a bit cheaper? You can add hops to a prehopped kit but you dont need very much. They are aroma/bouquet hops not bittering hops (short boil vs long boil).

If you're just soaking specialty grains, I don't think you want to include base malts (2-row). However I am new to AG and would suggest a 2nd opinion on that.

The only two Muntons/Coopers extract only kits I did (and have not done any since...) were Consesseurs Nut Brown Ale and Aussie Pale Ale. My LHBS didn't really direct me on what to add, so I just went with plain corn sugar too. The resultant beer was think and watery tasting. After a month in primary and a month in the keg (I wouldnt drink it so I let it age) it started to improve somewhat. Guests didn't notice the taste but I did. It's drinkable now but I still dont really enjoy it.

Here is the thread I made
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/canned-kit-corn-sugar-save-beer-202333/

And the commonly recommended solution was:
use "2-3 pounds of dry malt extract and 1-2 pounds (max) of sugar/highmalt glucose" instead of sugar alone.

Coopers actually sells a 'beer improver kit' which is sugar and dme. I was unable to find the link but I have seen it in the store.

Here is another option to consider: Midwest sells 20-min boil kits and you can see they add different amounts of dme/sugar (depending on the style of beer) and small amount of hops to improve the basic coopers kit. I think this is more what you are looking for. You can see the things they add here:
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/homebrewing-ingredients/recipe-kits/20-minute-boil-kits.html

PT Ray: Interesting, maybe I'll try adding some hops once and see what happens. (Edit: Actually might try Dry Hopping)

MikeRoBrew1: Your thread was a good read. My last batch of Coopers with Dextrose came out pretty good actually. However I cut the dextrose to 800g and used 19L of water versus 23L.

Being I'm in Canada prices seem a bit backwards. Hops and Grain seem pretty cheap to me. However Dme is like gold. For 500g of DME I'm looking at $9.50. Otherwise I'd use that for sure. I've been looking for the Coopers Beer kit improver also and haven't had any luck either. For the hops and grains I need I'm probably looking at $10 total.

I'm going to go ahead and experiment and make something similar to what PT Ray posted. I'll post my results in a month or so when I'm finished.

Which can of coopers are you using? What did you think of the kits at Midwest? I would find one of those kits that uses the can of Coopers you are using. Then they will have recommended grains and hops that match your Coopers flavor. You can emulate this kit yourself.

Hey, I'm using Cooper's Draught for my next batch. Those kits look really good. If I was in the USA I would definitely consider ordering them. They seem to mainly use DME, unfortunately due do the fact DME is over priced in my area I can't use it. However I did get some good ideas on what types of hops to use for various kits

PT Ray said:

Tomorrow I'm going to do another with Coopers Traditional Draught kit.


5.25 gallons
Coopers Premium Series Traditional Draught
2.5 lbs Pilsener
1 lb Munich
1 lb Wheat


I'm holding back on any crystal until I see how it attenuates and the overall sweetness.

Click to expand...

It's in the fermenter with the temp set at 55 degrees. I did a step infusion mash for the grains, 140 then to 152 degrees. I want the grains to over attenuate to compensate for extract under attenuating.

Coopers Premium Selection (I stated Series earlier) kits include a lager/ale yeast blend which I've gotten to work at 50-68 degrees. For the cooler temps I've had to use slurry from a prior batch because the 7 grams that comes with it just isn't enough.

I debated to add some additonal hops but decided to roll as is. Hopefully my Coopers Schwartzbier fairs well. I plan sending a couple bottles to another member for review.

Please let me know how that turns out when it's ready. It sure looks good to me.

Speaking of fermenting temps I really need to learn to setup a temperature control unit of some sort.

I take it your not using the coopers yeast for this?

pyrobrew said:

I take it your not using the coopers yeast for this?

Click to expand...

I am. Coopers Premium Selection series includes a yeast that is an ale/lager blend. They don't mention to use it at 50 degrees but it blows through a beer at 50 as well as it does 68 degrees. I get the same attenuation either way. But inorder to have enough yeast to ferment at 50 I use some slurry from the prior batch. Otherwise I'd have to pitch like 4 or 5 of those 7 gram packets.

Gotcha, thanks

I almost only use coopers kits, with extra lme and hops.. They turn out very good for my taste.

I typically add 4 pounds of lme, 1 pound of dextrose (or even table sugar) and 4 ounces of some hop I want to try out to a kit.

I just wanted to say that even with small 2 gallon boils hops can make a big difference, but I guess you might have to use more of them than in full boils.

edit:
I usually use their Australian Pale Ale kits, and add extra hops because I love IPAs..