Feet First... Into the Deep End

Hi, as I said in my intro post I am here with questions on how to use my kit to make my Irish stout. Please bear with me, I am a detail person so each thing seems vital to me!

Here are the ingredients which came with the kit:

Thomas Coopers Irish Stout: Hopped Malt Concentrate 3.75 lbs.
Thomas Coopers Yeast: packaged with the above
Briess CBW Pure Malt Extract non-diastatic unhopped Golden Light 3.3lbs
LD Carlson Priming Sugar 5 oz.

Plus two large buckets, lid, siphon tube and clamp, ferment lock, bottles and screw on caps.

1. What type of beer is this? Pilsner? Steam? I need to know what type of fermenting temps. to keep this concoction at during its processes.

2. The directions of my book (supplied with kit) Home Beermaking by William Moore state to add hops during the first part of the boil and at the last. Do I divvy up my can of stuff and what proportions do I dispense it at?

3. I have various amounts and types of sugars. The T. Coopers booklet says 300 gr. Dextrose/sugar. The book says 4 to 4 ½ oz. Corn sugar. The instructions for Irish Stout found on the web page http://www.homebrewit.com/Brewers_Best_Instructions/1023_Irish_Stout.pdf
state only to add 5 oz. priming sugar.

4. The kit included 24 plastic bottles with screw on tops. The web page for the brew says, ‘We recommend against the use of twist off bottles...’ So do I use them or not?

5. Irish Moss was not included but I see I can use Knox Gelatin to fine the brew.

6. If this is a Pilsner type brew keeping the stuff at the cool temps. recommended will be difficult. Does anyone know of one of those refrigerator temperature regulators and where to get one?

A thousand thanks to anyone who was stalwart enough to read through all of that. Ten thousand to anyone who can help me sort this all out!

In gratitude,
Petunia

Petunia said:

1. What type of beer is this? Pilsner? Steam? I need to know what type of fermenting temps. to keep this concoction at during its processes.

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Its Irish Stout. Go with what it says on the Cooper's instructions ( 68-72'F )

Petunia said:

2. The directions of my book (supplied with kit) Home Beermaking by William Moore state to add hops during the first part of the boil and at the last. Do I divvy up my can of stuff and what proportions do I dispense it at?

Click to expand...

Your kit didn't come with hops so don't worry about what the book says, follow the instructions on the Cooper's kit. Those instructions are specially made for beginners to be easy and ensure you get a good result. When the cooper's instructions mention 300 g Dextrose and 500 g Dry malt, just substitute your 3.3 lbs of Bries Malt.

Petunia said:

3. I have various amounts and types of sugars. The T. Coopers booklet says 300 gr. Dextrose/sugar. The book says 4 to 4 ½ oz. Corn sugar. The instructions for Irish Stout found on the web page http://www.homebrewit.com/Brewers_Best_Instructions/1023_Irish_Stout.pdf
state only to add 5 oz. priming sugar.

Click to expand...

300 g Dextrose as mentioned in your Coopers booklet is for fermentation, if you don't have it don't worry about it, you're going to use the Malt that came in your kit anyway.

The 4-4 1/2, or 5 oz of sugar is for priming when you bottle.

Petunia said:

4. The kit included 24 plastic bottles with screw on tops. The web page for the brew says, ‘We recommend against the use of twist off bottles...’ So do I use them or not?

Click to expand...

If you don't have anything else, might as well use them. You paid for em. Nice bottles are nice to have, but it wont be the last batch you make go ahead and use them.

Petunia said:

5. Irish Moss was not included but I see I can use Knox Gelatin to fine the brew.

Click to expand...

??

Petunia said:

6. If this is a Pilsner type brew keeping the stuff at the cool temps. recommended will be difficult. Does anyone know of one of those refrigerator temperature regulators and where to get one?

Click to expand...

Its not, don't worry. The Coopers kit can make about 70 and you'll be fine.

Also, you might want to take a peek at this site:
http://www.cascadiabrew.com/

They got a ton of recipes that use the Cooper's kits, they're really easy and they turn out good. Follow the instructions, if you can bake a Betty Crocker cake you can make Cooper's beer.

Mutilated1 got most of it so I'll just add a couple points. First is that there is nothing wrong with using the PET plastic bottles. It is all I use, they are pretty much indestructible which is nice. They were most likely referring to the use of twist off glass bottles - they CAN work if you use a bench capper but are definitely not ideal.

The major issue is regarding finings; DO NOT add gelatin to your beer unless you are going to keg it and force carbonate. It will remove the yeast and your beer will never carbonate if you do.

I think one of the problems you are having is that the book is giving you instructions on ingredient kits whereas those Coopers cans are basically self-contained and pre-boiled. The instructions in the book for the brewing portion really don't apply that much. As was stated, use the instructions that came with the Coopers kit but where they mention dextrose, use your malt extract (with the exception of the bottling instructions, dextrose is just fine there). Everything in the book AFTER the brewing part (fermentation, bottling, etc) still applies to Coopers kits.

Hope that helps! Enjoy your first brew!

Don't worry about the finings on your first brew. Some haziness in the beer won't affect the taste anyway. If I were you I wouldn't worry about it and get some Irish Moss before your next brew.
If you sanitize everything that contacts the cooled wort and follow the instructions I guarantee your first batch will be quite good.
Let us know how it turns out.

I am a noobie here too. (been reading the forums for about 2 weeks)

Make sure that if you have any questions about terminology you just ask.

Terms like "primary" "Priming sugar" ect as common here but if you don't know what they are then some of these posts can come out in a different language.

Good luck on your first brew.

Oh also - just to clarify one thing I said about following the instructions on the Cooper's kit. The Cooper's kit instructions say 5-6 days ferment time or ferment untill the hydrometer reading says otherwise - thats the one part of the instructions you might think twice about. I think its very worthwhile to let it ferment longer, or condition in the bottle longer. Cooper's kit instructions lead you to believe you can ferment for 5-6 days, bottle carbonate for 5 days, and then drink the beer - well you can do that, but you'll be a lot happier with the results if you go ahead and at least double the time, and then if you can manage to wait set the bottles away and let them condition for even a couple more weeks after that.

There are a lot of beer kits out there that claim they are pilsners or lagers yet they provide ale yeast with the kit. I honestly don't understand why they do that.

Just my 2 cents, Anytime a recipe calls for sugar, I personally use the same weight in DME, that way you get a little extra maltiness in your finished beer. With the Coopers Irish Stout kit, you would want to use dark DME.

One more thing, those kits are pre-hopped, so you dont even have to worry about adding any additional hops. Just boil it for 20-30 minutes and you will be fine.

Okay, since I needed Potassium Sorbate for my fig wine, I ordered the Irish Moss and the DME. I am going to have experiments all over the house. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Thanks!

Petunia