Mixing cans?

[Johnyb73]

HI , I'm going to brew a canned english bitter kit & I have a can of coopers draught. Can I Use the coopers draught in place of the sugar component? Or will the flavor of the draught mess with the bitter?
Thanks:rockin:

 

[Phalex]

If the Cooper's is a pre-hopped kit type of thing, it will effect the flavor of the finished product, but it will also add fermentables to the brew as well.

The end product probably won't be a bitter or a draught, but it will certainly be beer, and I'd venture a guess that it will be very drinkable.

 

[FensterBos]

Sometimes mixing extract is fine, but as Phalex mentioned, if the Cooper's draught is pre-hopped you will get those flavors in the final product.
By the way, what sugar component are you talking about?

 

[tomheff]

The IBUs of the English Bitter are 590 and the IBUs of the Draught are 420 in their concentrated form. In order to calculate an approximate bitterness in the brew that you would be making the following formula can be used:

multiply the quoted product bitterness by the weight of the product (1.7kg x 2 kits)* and divide by the total brew volume (normally 23 litres).
* The weight is used because the quoted bitterness figures are based on a weight/volume dilution.
Product bitterness x 1.7 / Brew volume = Total bitterness before fermentation

If you were to make 23 liters using the 2 kits your calculation would be:
590 x 1.7 / 23 = 43 IBU (International Bitterness Units) + 420 x 1.7 /23 = 31 IBU (International Bitterness Units). A combined total of 74 IBUs

This figure represents the brew bitterness prior to fermentation. Generally, fermentation reduces color and bitterness by between 10 to 30%. So final bitterness of the fermented brew may be anything from 51 to 67 IBU.

 

[unionrdr]

Toucan (read two can) kits are very popular down in AU. Check out coopers.com.au for write ups on this sort of thing.