Pimp my Coopers stout

[sbharrison]

I am fairly new to home brewing, on my 7th batch and been experimenting with specialty grains as well as hops. I love Guiness and have decided to make a batch of Coopers Irish stout for the first time, and was wondering what success some of you have had with making the Coopers Irish stout. Is it great in it self with just malt extract or can it be made into something even better by adding things such as specialty grains, hops, maltodextrin and lactose?

 

[DaNewf]

Cooper's has a recipe section of there website. Some of the recipes include steeping grains, hop additions and other ingredients. For instance the Choc-Liqueur Stout recipe calls for the Irish Stout kit, a can of un-hopped amber LME, 300 grams of chocolate malt and a 50ml bottle of chocolate flavoured spirit essence. I made this once and enjoyed it. Some cocoa powder and lactose might have made it even better.

 

[sbharrison]

I read a recipe on a thread coopers irish stout review that you commented on as well and thinking of taking that with a twist if your idea

Coopers irish stout

1.36 kg/3 lbs amber DME

100 grams honey

100 grams muscavado sugar (if I can find it at the store, if not perhaps brown sugar)

250 grams lactose

300 chocolate malt

Coco powder sounds interesting but not sure how much to use or when to add

The chocolate essence I don't think I have available locally

Thought of adding .5oz East kent goulding hops during last 5 min of boiling but not sure if this will help or hinder the taste.

Anyways this is my rough draft for my planned recipe, would be curious what ABV that would make, don't want to take it past 5%

 

[sbharrison]

Correction chocolate flavor spirits not essence

 

[sbharrison]

Well just put this batch together and here is what I did

1 can Coopers Irish stout
1.5kg amber dme
450g lactose (1 pound)
250g cocoa powder
250g chocolate malt steeped 30 min
Half a whirlfloc tablet
Kit yeast
Thinking of dry hopping 1/2 oz of east kent Golding leaf hops into secondary when the time comes

Will see how it tastes in a month or so

 

[dantose]

I'd toss in some flaked oats. Flaked oats make every stout better.

 

[sbharrison]

Hmmm, can this be done after the fact, such as in the primary or secondary?

 

[dantose]

Hmmm, can this be done after the fact, such as in the primary or secondary?

The oats? Probably not.

 

[sbharrison]

Well I will rock what I got now but how much would you recommend for my next batch? And what's the boil time on oats? I gave it some thought using oats but could not find anything regarding using oats in a chocolate milk stout but I'm retrospec makes sence. This is also my first homebrew stout so don't even know if the chocolate milk idea will even be a good idea considering I have heard that the irish stout is pretty good on its own with dme. Should be fizzing away hopefully by tomorrow and I have some friends who are interested in trying out the end result. I would really love a thick easy drinking stout with a solid head that lasts till the end.

 

[dantose]

Well I will rock what I got now but how much would you recommend for my next batch? And what's the boil time on oats? I gave it some thought using oats but could not find anything regarding using oats in a chocolate milk stout but I'm retrospec makes sence. This is also my first homebrew stout so don't even know if the chocolate milk idea will even be a good idea considering I have heard that the irish stout is pretty good on its own with dme. Should be fizzing away hopefully by tomorrow and I have some friends who are interested in trying out the end result. I would really love a thick easy drinking stout with a solid head that lasts till the end.

A pound or two usually. Add them with specialty grains.

EDIT: and if you keep them in a separate grain bag from your chocolate malt, you can have a nice little bowl of oatmeal after!

 

[sbharrison]

Thanks, I will give that a shot next batch.