Coopers Irish Stout Review

[shamfein]

Hey all,

I bottled this beer on the 30/01/2014. Recipe was

1 Can Coopers Irish Stout
1kg of Dark Dry Malt Extract
500g of Light Dry Malt Extract
100 grams of Muscavado Sugar,
100 grams of honey
100 grams of Crystal 60 steeped for 30 minutes.
12 grams of East Kent Gouldings boiled for last 5 minutes and added to Fermenter.

Came in at 4.9% ABV

Its a little over 5 weeks in the bottle and it really is starting to become really good, the smell is a little chocolaty, quite rich smelling,

Its got a really nice smooth taste, i deliberately under carbed it, as stouts shouldnt be big on carbonation.

The head hangs around for quite a while.

Overall im really happy on this beer, I think ill follow the same recipe next time with the addition of 500 grams of Lactose to make a milk stout and see how that turns out.

Has anyone else given this kit a try and how were your results?

 

[DaNewf]

I hope you get a better price for your brewing supplies than I do. Buying locally that recipe would cost me around $60CDN. Shipping would cause my online purchase to cost even more. The local price of malt extract (dry and liquid) is what convinced me to move to mini-mash brewing using Cooper's kits as a base (from there it was easy to jump into small batch all grain brewing).

I've never tried the Irish Stout because my LHBS doesn't carry the Cooper's Brewmaster kits. I have used the Cooper's OS Sout kit a bunch of times and like it a lot.

It looks like you have a good recipe there but I'm wondering if the honey and Muscavado sugar is contributing anything noticeable to the flavour especially at 100 grams each. The reason I am wondering is because I recently did a Cooper's OS Stout that included about 200 grams of molasses (along with a bunch of other left over ingredients). I think that I get a very faint taste of molasses from this brew but it could be my imagination since I know it's in there.

 

[shamfein]

wow $60 for that recipe is quite alot so i can understand why you have moved onto partial/ mini mash recipes.

All the ingredients cost me a total of €30, not sure what that converts over to in CDN $.

To be honest im not getting anything from either the honey or Muscavado, I threw it in just because i had it left over so i said it might add a little something, I have quite alot of spraymalt in it so that is more than likely drowning out the muscavado and honey.

I have done the Original Series Stout before and it turned out great, i find it a little bit more bitter and darker than the Irish Stout, but not a massively noticable difference to be honest.

In the Original series stout i used 500g of Dark Muscavado and i could really get the flavour of this coming through.

 

[johnny2combs]

Love the recipe shamfein

I decided to do your recipe, but ended up having to change some of the ingredients as the LHBS didn't have these items in stock at the time.

Brewed 16 Mar 15

1 Can Coopers Irish Stout
1kg of Dark Dry Malt Extract (Mangrove Jacks Beer Enhancer Irish Stout No.74)
500g of Light Dry Malt Extract
500 grams of Muscavado Sugar (as per your post below)
200 grams of Bush Honey
200 grams of Dark Chocolate malt (no Crystal 60 in stack at the time)
12 grams of NZ Golding hops

This will come out at approx 6.6% ABV

Initial taste test brought a instant hit of bitterness which then faded away quickly to a slightly sweet chocolaty/molasses taste dancing over the tongue.

So the big test will be after it has been bottled.

Will keep updated this thread once this brew has conditioned some what.

Once again shamfein thanks for posting your recipe, will definitely look at re-doing this batch with all the ingredients listed in your post.

 

[nicklawmusic]

I'm thinking of bumping up a Coopers Irish Stout kit but had a question about steeping grains. How do you work out how much fermentable sugar you'll get from a certain weight of, say, chocolate malt? I'd love to add some fresh ingredients to a kit without making it excessively high in ABV.

Thoughts?!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[shamfein]

Wow, great to hear Johnny, sounds like you have took my recipe to the next level, sounds good to me, 6.6% will be a nice potent brew.

Cant wait to hear how it turns out once its sat a little bit of time in the bottle.

 

[DaNewf]

I'm thinking of bumping up a Coopers Irish Stout kit but had a question about steeping grains. How do you work out how much fermentable sugar you'll get from a certain weight of, say, chocolate malt? I'd love to add some fresh ingredients to a kit without making it excessively high in ABV.

Thoughts?!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

From what I've read chocolate malt does not contribute any fermentable sugars. It is malted but it is also kilned at a high temperature which renders it unfermentable.