First batch of Cooper's Real Ale

I boiled up 5 gal. Here's what I did. Please critique so I may get better at making better beer.

1 1/2 gal water on stove until boil. Added 1 lb of corn sugar and 1 lb of dry spray malt. Then added the 3.75 lbs of Cooper's Real Ale to the pot. Stirred constantly so LME wouldn't burn on the bottom. Brought to a full boil for 30 minutes. Added 1 oz of cascade hop pellets 10 minutes before flameout.
Put three gal of col water in fermenting bucket and poured in wort using a strainer.
Put bucket in sink and filled sink with cold water and brought temp down to 70 degrees.
Yeast - I put a 1/2 tsp corn sugar in cup and added approx 1/2 cup warm water (105 degrees). Dumped in dried yeast and let sit for approx 3 minutes, then pitched to inoculate wort. Stuck the lid on with an airlock. Wrapped up with an old sweat shirt to keep the UV from ruining the mix.
Will now wait till FG then plan on transferring to glass carboy. Will then wait two weeks and bottle using 5 conditioning tabs per bottle and cap.

Please let me know what you think. I've been making wine for approx 12 years and this beer making is a whole lot different.

Hutch

Gosh I dislike auto correct.

Anyway, I forgot to say that the OG is 1.040 at 70 degrees.

Bump

Up till the addition of the yeast it sounds like typical Coopers process although the OG sounds a BIT low to me. But adding yeast to 105* water sounds HOT to me. Next part sounds fine if the yeast survived. Ferment below 70* I don't know what kind of priming tabs you are using... but, Coopers tabs require one tab for a 12 oz and possibly a 16 oz bottle and two for a 750ml (25 oz) bottle. Use whatever the manufacturer of the tabs recommends. That said.. if the yeast if fermenting the wort.. you'll make beer.

If you want you can wait til FG then wait another couple weeks then bottle. Skipping the secondary.

The only time I have used a secondary after my second batch was once when I needed the 6 gallon Better Bottle for a new batch. I now have two 6 gallon Better Bottles, a brew bucket, one 5 gallon Better Bottle, two 3 gallon water bottles and plenty of 5 gallon buckets. Time to fill them all!

Out of curiosity, I'm about to brew my very first batch, and chose the "real ale".. I was wondering, how did yours turn out Chuck?

I'm considering following your process.

Is this pre-hopped? I thought you got a bag of hops in the kit... ??

ThreeGnomes said:

Is this pre-hopped? I thought you got a bag of hops in the kit... ??

Click to expand...

Mine just came with the can of extract, a packet of yeast, and instructions that are in a language I don't speak, which is complicating things a bit. The hops are in the extract.

It's billed as "no boil" some places. I'm guessing that's because of the hops? Everyone seems to say that you definitely want to boil it and add your own hops as well.

K.. It's been some time since I did my last Coopers. I've gone Brewers Best.. Like them FAR better. Still do int in my DIY tho.