# Coopers Stout



## junior06 (10/11/05)

Hey Lads,

After doing a little research i keep hearing that coopers stout is a really good kit brew (after reading ALOT of posts on here i realise that most you experienced brewers will tell me there's no such thing as a good kit brew) anyways it's all relative!
Onto my point, I was wondering if anyone has played around with this and gotten some good results, i picked up 2 cans of the stuff plus 2 kg's of enhancer so i figuire i'll do 2 brews maybe changing 1 or 2 variables and see what happens(keep in mind this would be my 3rd & 4th brew). I heard putting some chocolate in there even milo works well, i've also heard putting golden syrup. I really enjoy the commercial coopers extra stout. Any suggestions?

Cheers
Junior


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## johnno (10/11/05)

Hi junior,
I hope the 06 does not indicate your age. But i suppose you have to learn how to brew. So the younger you start the better.  
Just make sure you get your dad or uncles etc to drink it.

I dont know about milo or chocolate but the booster kit with some brown sugar, about 2-300 grams would be good.

When I made one of these i used 1 kilo of dry malt with the brown sugar made to about 20 litres and I was very happy with the result.

Good luck with it and let us know how it turns out.

johnno


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## GMK (10/11/05)

Steep 50gms of Roast Barley and 100gms of choc and 200 xtal in 3ltrs of cold water overnight.

Better to stain the liquid into a larger pot and boil for 20mins with 20gms of Hops -EKG or POR.
Alternatively, u can just strain the liquid into the ferementer not as good.

If you fill out your location - might make it easier to help/advise.


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## junior06 (10/11/05)

Thanks for the advice, i think i'll brew one tonight or tomorrow and suss it out, lol i'm old enough to drink(in most countries).


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## mudsta (10/11/05)

For a stout kit id swear by coopers. Ive brewed many different variations with excellent results. Here is a couple....

Basic 23L (won 3 awards)
stout can 1.7kg
500g cane sugar
1000g dextrose
250g corn syrup
750g dried dark malt

Basic and all balls!!! 23L (won 4 awards)
stout can 1.7kg
1.5kg dried dark malt
250g corn syrup
muntons gold yeast instead of coopers kit

As for hops ive done many others with fuggles, cluster, target etc

also try using 50g chocolate malt and 100g crystal malt steeped in
boiling water for 15mins (do not boil grain) then strain into fermenter.

All in all a good base kit to work with.

Happy brewin, mudsta :beerbang:


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## Mr Bond (10/11/05)

Do it with a recultured coopers yeast from a pale ale and its even better.


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## mudsta (10/11/05)

yep i would agree with the coopers yeast recultured, works a treat.

I just thought if your only new to brewing, try stick to small and easy recipe steps. (less chance of faliure) Work your way up into complex recipes and techniques later.

(by the way no offence brauluver)  

mudsta :beerbang:


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## Thunderlips (11/11/05)

mudsta said:


> All in all a good base kit to work with.
> Happy brewin, mudsta :beerbang:
> [post="89732"][/post]​



They both sound great. I've not made a stout kit yet but am looking forward to it.
I have a couple of liquid yeasts handy, 1056 and 1332, do you think any of these would be better than using the kit yeast?


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## PostModern (11/11/05)

I love the Cooper stout kit. I use it as the base of a partial mash replica of Coopers BES. Great kit. Just use recultured yeast from a bottle of Coopers rather than that crap that comes under the lid of the kit.


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## Kai (11/11/05)

I'd second the use of a coopers bottle yeast. And steeping some crystal and chocolate malt for a little extra flavour.

I've never used dark malt extract personally, but if I was doing a coopers stout kit at the simplest level I would use 750g DME and 250g dextrose and fill it to around 18 litres.


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## DrewCarey82 (11/11/05)

junior06 said:


> Hey Lads,
> 
> After doing a little research i keep hearing that coopers stout is a really good kit brew (after reading ALOT of posts on here i realise that most you experienced brewers will tell me there's no such thing as a good kit brew) anyways it's all relative!
> 
> [post="89654"][/post]​



Trust me there is and I brew them frequently.


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## Uncle Fester (11/11/05)

I have found that making a 2 can brew with the Coopers stout works a treat.

1 x Can Coopers Stout
1 x Can draught (I usually use a home brand draught)
1 x packet Coopers brewblend #1 or 2
Corn syrup if you like

add together as per the coopers instructions, use the coopers yeast only, fill to 20 or 23 litres and off you go.

Usually in the high 6's to low 7's for Alc content, nice and rich and smooth.

This is my preferred brew if I am trying to slip a quick kit in with the shopping  

M


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## BRAD T (11/11/05)

I have a tucan Coopers Stout that I did in June,

2 x Coopers Stout Cans
Mini Mash of the following
100g Carapils
100g Melanoidin
100g CaraAroma
100g Chocolate Malt
100g Oat Flakes
( I was using up some little bits and pieces of grain left over from other brews )
500g Dark Brown Sugar
500g Dark Malt Extract
Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast
Dry Hopped 20g Northern Brewer Pellets
OG 1064 FG 1012

1 week Primary, 2 weeks Secondary

It was quite bitter the first couple I tried but I had one last week and it is mellowing out to be a very nice drop

Cheers
BradT


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## junior06 (11/11/05)

> . Just use recultured yeast from a bottle of Coopers rather than that crap that comes under the lid of the kit.



Excuse my ignorance but how do you use the yeast out of the bottom of a coopers bottle? Do you just pour it straight in? Very curious.


Another note, i'm new to AHB and brewing, but if it weren't for the site my fermenter would be collecting dust as I gave up for 6 months after a $h*t first brew, thanks for all the great advice, can't wait to be answering questions rather than asking them!

Cheers.


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## RobW (11/11/05)

Try a search for yeast farming or yeast starters.
In the meantime here's one to kick off with:
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...3697&hl=starter

ed: typo


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## Steve (11/11/05)

junior - have a read of this:

http://www.grumpys.com.au/m1.php3?manualid=11

Cheers and welcome back to brewing....hang in there its worth it.
Steve


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## Mr Bond (11/11/05)

mudsta said:


> (by the way no offence brauluver)
> 
> mudsta :beerbang:
> [post="89740"][/post]​



None taken my good man, after all this is a public forum full of opinions and plenty of conjecture to keep us entertained.


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## BeerIsGood (11/11/05)

I just bottled a toucan:
1 x can Cooper's stout
1 x can Cooper's dark ale
500g Cooper's Light Dry Malt (DME)
Made to 24.0L

Came out dark.  

This recipe is in accordance with the Rheinheitsgebot of 1516 :blink: 

Be back to boast in a few months if it was any good.


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## Foz (24/3/06)

Hey BeerIsGood how did your toucan turn out?

I'm keen to do a choco stout but yeah hearing from you would certainly help!


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## peas_and_corn (26/3/06)

BRAD T said:


> I have a tucan Coopers Stout that I did in June,
> 
> 2 x Coopers Stout Cans
> Mini Mash of the following
> ...



that's a lot of malt/extract/sugar! how big was the batch?


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## Jet01 (8/6/19)

Yesterday I bought another fermenter as I want some stout for a camping trip next month. 
Any ideas on what alcohol content to expect with this:
Coopers stout kit
ESB #25 stout booster 
I’ll bottle it with the coopers carbo drops to keep it simple


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## TheBigD (22/6/19)

Jet01 said:


> Yesterday I bought another fermenter as I want some stout for a camping trip next month.
> Any ideas on what alcohol content to expect with this:
> Coopers stout kit
> ESB #25 stout booster
> I’ll bottle it with the coopers carbo drops to keep it simple



I was at ESBrewing Kirrawee yesterday and picked up a can of coopers Irish stout but instead of the brew booster I picked up a couple of 1kg packets of LDM instead as its the first time I've brewed the Irish stout I wanted to see how it stands alone. Ive had great results with the original stout though, good luck hope it turns out a cracker.


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## Jet01 (22/6/19)

Ended up back there today. Going to put a toucan on next stout/dark ale 500g brown sugar. I hear that tastes pretty good. 
First stout is ready for the bottle.


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## dkilleen (23/6/19)

Jet01 said:


> Ended up back there today. Going to put a toucan on next stout/dark ale 500g brown sugar. I hear that tastes pretty good.
> First stout is ready for the bottle.


I brew a coopers Irish regularly and just add a can of coopers dark malt.. and sometimes boil up about 15 g of target hops and throw that in at the start.. gives it a bit more of Guinness bitterness ... works for me! I’ve even tried adding treacle but it just seemed to raise the gravity without changing the taste. I bottle into 750ml tallies with less sugar (1drop per bottle instead of recommended 2)than normal to keep the head to normal levels when pouring


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## Paddy Melon (23/6/19)

Hey Jet01, I added an additional 1.5 cups of coopers enhancer #3. and the ABV was at 4.3 before bottling. hope that helps


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## Jet01 (23/6/19)

Hey guys. I bottled the Kit stout today. 
But after a fair bit of reading over the last few days i’ve realised that i’ve stuffed the OG reading which came out as 1120. Clearly its wrong. FG was 1014. 
As mentioned before i kept it simple and used only put the stout kit, one bag of ESB stout booster and the coopers yeast in. Pitched at 22deg, fermented at 18->16 over the last 2 weeks. 15days in wort. 
Any ideas what the OG would be roughly for a standard brew like that. 

When I did the standard lager kit that came with the DIY gear, the OG was 1035ish, but I’d never used a hydrometer before and didn’t realise I was supposed to make sure there was no bubbles in the tube and take the reading from the top of the meniscus. So i’m guessing that reading was out too. 

Would love a ball park if you’ve gone the simple K&K route yourself previously. I’m thinking maybe about 4% then up to 4.5% in the bottle after a couple of weeks? 

I’m typing this as i’m tasting the bottom of the barrell longneck.... it’s cloudy and bitter. I don’t mind it at all. Can’t wait to pop a bottle in 3 weeks on the beach with the boys. 
This is the first time I’ve used glass bottles. Here’s hoping my cleaning process was up to scratch.


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## peterlonz (24/6/19)

Unless you have dedicated yourself to reading hydrometers accurately I'd suggest just stop using them. You can pretty easily assess the ABV of a brew when you know the total fermentables, sure it's not accurate but who cares, your aim is to produce a good quality ale/stout/whatever. Also normally an ABV of around 4.5 is satisfactory from the viewpoint of taste optimisation. Anything significantly above that presents another problem, you will keep falling over, or perhaps off to sleep, & your mates won't be able to drive home - ask SHMBO about that concept.


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## Jet01 (29/6/19)

peterlonz said:


> Unless you have dedicated yourself to reading hydrometers accurately I'd suggest just stop using them. You can pretty easily assess the ABV of a brew when you know the total fermentables, sure it's not accurate but who cares, your aim is to produce a good quality ale/stout/whatever. Also normally an ABV of around 4.5 is satisfactory from the viewpoint of taste optimisation. Anything significantly above that presents another problem, you will keep falling over, or perhaps off to sleep, & your mates won't be able to drive home - ask SHMBO about that concept.



4.5 is nice, but after drinking a few coopers best extra stouts, and a few at the local speak easy recently. I’d like to be able to have a similar beer at home. 6% in a longneck seems to be a bit of sweet spot for me when I just want to have one bottle on a Friday or Saturday while watching the footy. 

Nice to try and replicate at home.


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## wide eyed and legless (29/6/19)

Jet01 said:


> 4.5 is nice, but after drinking a few coopers best extra stouts, and a few at the local speak easy recently. I’d like to be able to have a similar beer at home. 6% in a longneck seems to be a bit of sweet spot for me when I just want to have one bottle on a Friday or Saturday while watching the footy.
> 
> Nice to try and replicate at home.


I nearly stopped at one, once.


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## PaulG79 (2/7/19)

Hey Jet have you tried that stout yet? Would be good to know how it turns out. I've never brewed one, only done some dark beers that were from recipe packs off Cooper's site. Some hits and some misses.


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## TheBigD (2/7/19)

using a mix of dry fermentables of around 2kg added with the tin in 23l will generally get you to around 6% every time, say 1.5kg LDM and 500g of dex is a good mix.

I never do OG readings either(lazy brewer) only FG readings and on a occasion I've been known to give them a miss too but only when I keg the full amount of a 19l brew.

I can generally tell now by taste and what it looks like that is done but if some is going into glass I'll always do an FG. Just to be clear this is bad practice and not good advice its just the way I do things.


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## Paddy Melon (3/7/19)

Hey Jet, I've done three of these this year and they are have all been between 1.038 and 1.040 OG. I must say that I am really impressed with the final product. Also it gets even better with age. 4 months wait has made it a smooth stout. Mind you I didn't try any before the 4 months so don't know how much better they are now compared to what they might have been if they were younger......I now try all my brews after the first month and rate them.


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## Jet01 (3/7/19)

Thanks for the input gents. 

The stout was in the fermenter 15days and in the bottle for 9days. I cracked open one today, no expectations of grandeur considering how young it is. 

All good so far. Definitely will get better with age. Cracked a bottle and took a gravity reading, 1013. Looks as though this is a little light on ABV like the lager kit I did initially. 

I’m just using an ABV calculator on the BrewTracker app. Says 1040 to 1013 is around 3.5%.
Anyone used this before?


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## PaulG79 (5/7/19)

TheBigD said:


> using a mix of dry fermentables of around 2kg added with the tin in 23l will generally get you to around 6% every time, say 1.5kg LDM and 500g of dex is a good mix.
> 
> I never do OG readings either(lazy brewer) only FG readings and on a occasion I've been known to give them a miss too but only when I keg the full amount of a 19l brew.
> 
> I can generally tell now by taste and what it looks like that is done but if some is going into glass I'll always do an FG. Just to be clear this is bad practice and not good advice its just the way I do things.



I know it's technically bad practice... I do it too, I just think if you're brewing straight kits n bits and you've got a bit of experience it's not really necessary. All you need to know is, is it infected, is it fermenting, has it finished fermenting... and I can tell all those by sight now after a lot of practice. If you're brewing AG or all extract it's more important.


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## PaulG79 (5/7/19)

Jet01 said:


> Thanks for the input gents.
> 
> The stout was in the fermenter 15days and in the bottle for 9days. I cracked open one today, no expectations of grandeur considering how young it is.
> 
> ...



I don't know BrewTracker but I've used Beersmith and the Ian H spreadsheet (kit and extract designer) from this forum. Bottling adds 0.5% to the finished product. Do you know what's in that stout booster? I'm guessing it would be dark dried malt and dextrose. Kit and kilo (or thereabouts) brewed to 23L will always come out around 4.5% if you bottle it.

That's way on the light side for a stout I reckon, I don't mind a Guinness but otherwise I like stouts strong and thick and rich like the Coopers. There are recipes on the Coopers site for replicating their stouts pretty easily, or you could do a toucan to make it richer. I've seen guys using 2 tins of stout on this forum. I wonder if that would make it too bitter though, although I don't mind a big bitter beer.

That toucan thread is a recipe goldmine.


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## TheBigD (26/7/19)

Well I brewed mine over the school holidays whilst I was over seas so it had two weeks to ferment out, I use the coopers collar just in case it was a explosive ferment, I've since removed the collar and cold crashed for 7 days so hopefully I'll keg it on Saturday or Sunday, It tastes very nice out of the FV not as robust as the original stout but should make for a more sessional beer. Looking forward to getting into this one.


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## Jet01 (1/8/19)

This is a bit of a combo post that i’ll put in both threads for the stout novice. 

My second batch of beer ever was a coopers stout kit and kilo. Used the kit and bag of ESB stout booster. Started drinking it after 3 weeks in the bottle and was finished the whole batch at the 4week mark. The last few bottles were a lot better than the first few. Lesson learnt to be as patient as you can to get the best taste out of your stout. 

I also made a toucan last month. Coopers stout/dark ale with 1kg brown sugar, M42 yeast. 2carb drops per long neck. 

13days in the primary 
26days in the bottle. 

I ran out of home brew after I took a case away with me on a camping trip, so was forced to buy some off the shelf stuff. I bought a case of cooper Best Extra stout, which was the beer that inspired me to start home brewing. 

I was surprised that I really didn’t like the taste of the BES anymore, tasted like a burnt mess. 

I prefer the toucan that I made and will be doing what I can to make more in the future so I don’t have to buy the commercial stuff. 

It’s really bitter which I like, but doesn’t seem to taste as burnt as the BES. I’m thinking the sweetness from the brown sugar has taken some of that out. 

I’m going to make another Stout/Dark Ale toucan next batch, but with 500g LDM instead of the brown sugar. See how that goes... 

Thanks for all the tips and tricks so far. It’s been great.


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## JB'sbrewing (4/8/19)

did a coopers stout can a year ago brewed in 11 litres to replicate the 2can, no extras was good at a month in bottle and last one was even better with 6months on it. Calculated it to be about 6.5% 
Jon.


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## ElGuapisimo (5/8/19)

Jet01 said:


> Thanks for the input gents.
> 
> The stout was in the fermenter 15days and in the bottle for 9days. I cracked open one today, no expectations of grandeur considering how young it is.
> 
> ...



Rule of thumb for figuring ABV is to subtract the final gravity from the original gravity and divide the resulting number by 7.5
1.040
1.010
_____
30
30/7.5 = 4.0%
From "Flying Barrel" beer school summer of 2011.

ElG


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## TheBigD (6/8/19)

My Irish stout is very nice at this young age in the keg cant see it lasting much more than another week lol, Im going to sit the bottles for around 3 months and see how they develop. Ill probably do the original stout/dark ale toucan for my next dark beer but it'll be some time off as I like to do a few lighter beers in between the darker ones.


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