# Coopers Kit Specs



## Bongchitis (8/10/08)

Hy guys,

I remember seeing colour and IBU values for the Coopers range of kits on a thread here somewhere but do you think i can find it?

I'm playing around with beersmith and am formulating some brews with the kits as a base. I have made a ball park stab at a couple but it is less than robust.

Does anyone know where it is? There was also an equation for converting goo IBU to brew IBU from the figures.

I am having trouble narrowing down the search. Any help would be greatly appreciated. :beer: :icon_cheers: 

Cheers and thanks.... Bongchitis


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## Thunderlips (8/10/08)

This Singapore store shows the IBU's...
http://www.ibrew.com.sg/Beer%20Kits.asp

Edit: But not for all of them it seems.


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## clean brewer (8/10/08)

Go to Coopers Website.

http://www.coopers.com.au/homebrew/hbrew.p...id=1&id=111

Click on Beer Cans.


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## Goofinder (8/10/08)

I made this list up a while back from info I gathered from across the web. Haven't looked at it in a while so it may be out of date or wrong.

View attachment kits.xls


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## QIK86 (8/10/08)

Just found them today in the toucan thread actually. Here they are again though. Enjoy.

Coopers 

Kit EBC SRM Kit IBU Brew IBU
Lager 90 33.51 390 21.20
Draught 130 48.60 420 22.83
Real Ale 230 86.34 560 30.43
Bitter 420 158.04 620 33.70
Dark Ale 550 207.09 590 32.07
Stout 1800 678.79 710 38.59
Canadian Blonde 70 25.96 420 22.83
Bavarian Lager 90 33.51 390 21.20
Mexican Cerveza 53 19.55 300 16.30
Australian Pale Ale 90 33.51 340 18.48


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## Bribie G (8/10/08)

Good info QIK86 - (edit: I have cut and pasted that into a doc for future use  ) I got the IBU info off the Coopers site a few months ago when I was looking to try a toucan, and did an original series lager - two cans and no additions. The Lager has the lowest IBU and, when done as a toucan ends up with about the same bitterness as VB, heaps of malt and body, and excellent bang for the buck for less than $20 if you can get em on special.

On the other hand I had made the mistake of using a kit as a base and adding bittering hops which has ended up with a very bitter and unbalanced brew, so it's handy to have the statistics if you want to do a kit and bits, or a kit as part of a partially mashed brew where you want to add hops and specialty grains.


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## Pennywise (9/10/08)

How would you put the kits into beersmith so you get all the info in one place? If you put it in a extract there's no IBU function.


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## petesbrew (9/10/08)

Homebrewer79 said:


> How would you put the kits into beersmith so you get all the info in one place? If you put it in a extract there's no IBU function.


VERY good question


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## Bongchitis (9/10/08)

Thanks for the info guys... excellent! Exactly what i was after.

I get around the lack of IBU function in beersmith by trying different weights of 8%AA in the extract spec and inputing into a recipe. If the lager brew for instance doesn't come out at 21 IBU then i keep tweaking until it is. Why 8%AA? Dunno! Then this becomes the final kit spec... a bit rough but it is kit brewing! Seems to work ok so far.

Cheers to all..... Bongchitis.


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## earle (10/10/08)

This is similar to what I do but I found that once you get the IBU right for the kit by itself, once you add more malt to your recipe it will change the IBU of the kit as the extra malt changes the utilization. So what I do is
- add kit specs as above post
- for a new recipe add the kit and all malts
- adjust the weight of hops in the kit to get it back to the right IBU
- add any hops


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## Bongchitis (10/10/08)

Nice one Earle!

I was wondering about that change in IBU. I don't suppose you can lock in utilisation somehow. It is strange as the hopped extract already has its utilisation of hops applied and thus should remain unchanged irrespective of recipe. Perceived bitterness will reduce with more malt and not actuall bitterness. Go figure. Time to play.

I love beersmith!


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## buttersd70 (10/10/08)

Bongchitis said:


> Nice one Earle!
> 
> I don't suppose you can lock in utilisation somehow. It is strange as the hopped extract already has its utilisation of hops applied and thus should remain unchanged irrespective of recipe



I've never found a way of locking it in....what I would do, as long as the volume is remaining at 23L, is leave the bitterness of the tin out altogether, and just work out the hops for how much additional IBU is required, ie if its a 20BU tin and I want to hop for 30IBU, add enough hops for 10IBU and put a comment in the notes section about what the tin IBU contribution is, for future reference. If the volume is being changed, then you would need to recalculate, because the bitterness of the tin will change with dilution.


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## Pennywise (10/10/08)

QIK86 said:


> Just found them today in the toucan thread actually. Here they are again though. Enjoy.
> 
> Coopers
> 
> ...




I think you will find that for a standard 23 litre batch those IBU in the final brew are a little high. What size batch are you calculating for?


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## buttersd70 (10/10/08)

Homebrewer79 said:


> I think you will find that for a standard 23 litre batch those IBU in the final brew are a little high. What size batch are you calculating for?



those are the IBU figures as quoted by coopers. Now, coopers in particular, have a funny way of working out the bitterness. From their faq, they say to multiply the ibu by the can size, and divide by the volume......so for 23L, and using the lager as an eg.
1.7*390/23= 28.8 IBU

Now, I agree that this appears too high. (way too high). Coopers, in their wisdom, then go on to state (and I'm paraphrasing) that the IBU given will lower due to activity during the fermentation and can be out by between 10% and 30%..  

Personally, I have found from brewing a lot of coopers tins, with and without additional hops, and with varying amounts of malt and varying volumes, and comparing them to each other, and also to full extract brews, that for the most part, you get a better estimate of the bitterness in the tin by simply dividing the IBU by the volume (even though mathematically this is not correct. But for volumes of 19-27L, it _seems _to work.)

So the lager would be 390/23= 17IBU, 

which to me seems a lot more reasonable. I mean, if it was actually 28IBU, it means that you could make it up to 1040 with malt, and still come in at 0.7 BU:GU. Ever had a coopers lager made up to 1040 with ldm, with no additional hops? If it's 0.7 BU:GU, I'll eat my own arse. :lol: . Coopers lager with a be2, ie with 250g malt (and dex and maltodex, that leave little or no residual sweetness) seems to be OK, which makes sense if it is 17IBU. (0.63 BUGU, discounting the dex and maltodex, again because they leave no residual sweetness).


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## Bongchitis (10/10/08)

Now thats a bloody good idea butters. Saves all the mucking around. Now I have the figures it is easy. I'll be doing that from now on, cheers mate.

HB79, why would those figures be a little high? Just an experience thing? I remember a debate where brewers were thrashing out the derivation of the equation for goo -->brew IBU conversion. I know it is not a matter of dividing by 23.... volume correction required etc etc. But i do have trouble searching this site for some reason and cannot find it either.

Off to the toucan thread for a look.

Cheers fellas...... Bongchitis


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## Pennywise (10/10/08)

Bongchitis said:


> Now thats a bloody good idea butters. Saves all the mucking around. Now I have the figures it is easy. I'll be doing that from now on, cheers mate.
> 
> HB79, why would those figures be a little high? Just an experience thing? I remember a debate where brewers were thrashing out the derivation of the equation for goo -->brew IBU conversion. I know it is not a matter of dividing by 23.... volume correction required etc etc. But i do have trouble searching this site for some reason and cannot find it either.
> 
> ...



I prolly should have done a little research before posting, I was under the asumption that all you had to do was divide their IBU for the tin bu the total volume of the brew. So going by the lager tin that's 390 IBU and divide by 23 I got just shy of 17 IBU, and you have 21.2 IBU. That's where I was getting a bit confused. I reckon though, I'll still be doing it that way if Coopers reckon it can be over by 10-30%. Quite silly they even put it on their site if it's a ballpark figure, considering that's a pretty big ballpark


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## buttersd70 (10/10/08)

I didn't see the right hand column in the stats that qik posted :lol: .

looking at it again, I ded see this when it was posted on the other thread (or in a spreadsheet somewhere, and I can't remember). The 21.2 figure there is after working out the 390 using a different formula, for the actual dilution (using volume instead of weight. This, technically, is actually the way it _should _be worked out, in a perfect world)

If you take this figure, and apply a 20% error to it (right in the middle of what coopers reckon their error rate is  ) you actually come back to 17IBU again. Funny stuff.


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