# Coopers real ale kit + bits



## clickeral (8/1/17)

So seeing as how I have now moved house and sort of got my garage setup (needs more storage and organizing). Along with foolishly agreeing to a house warming on the 21st I thought I should smash out a quaff-able kit beer to fill one of the kegs so that the Kegerator has something on tap

Recipe as per below 

1X Coopers real ale kit
1X BE2 (part of a packet)
1X 250g Coopers pale ale malt

25g Nelson Sauvin at 20mins

So after sanitizing everything,

250g of malt went into 3.4L of water into a pot on the gas stove and taken to a rolling boil, added 25g of Nelson Sauvin and boiled for 20mins (used some hot water to rinse out the bag of malt) (I grabbed a few Tablespoons of the liquid to use as a starter to rehydrate the kit yeast (I normally use US05 or US04 but I am all out)

While this was happening I put my kit can into some hot water in the sink and dumped my lump of BE2 into the fermentor

Poured the goop all over it with a little hot water from the boiled kettle to clean the can out.

Once the timer was up I filtered out the hotbreak and the hop residue and then poured her straight into the fermentor, mixing it up to add as much 02 as I can.

Topped upto 23L and with some added ice got her down to about 25C, pitched the yeast and chucked her into the fermentation fridge pics below 

Going to ferment it out at 17C, Currently no idea of SG as I left my measuring cylinders at my mates place tipping it will be about 4-5% abv when finished if my math is right (happy for correction  )






Temp probe is taped to the side of the fermentor 






Any thoughts or critics would be great, thanks all


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## TwoCrows (8/1/17)

Sounds good to me. Should help ease the ambient temp stress on the body... :drinks: 

The real ale kit is pretty bitter 35-40 IBU from memory. If you want, maybe try dry hopping if you have anything to add?

With the Cooper kits, already having bittering added. I add hops @5 and /or whirlpool around 80 degrees C and throw in fermenter. I seem to dry hop all my Apa's now, 2 grams / litre minimum.


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## clickeral (8/1/17)

TwoCrows said:


> Sounds good to me. Should help ease the ambient temp stress on the body... :drinks:
> 
> The real ale kit is pretty bitter 35-40 IBU from memory. If you want, maybe try dry hopping if you have anything to add?
> 
> With the Cooper kits, already having bittering added. I add hops @5 and /or whirlpool around 80 degrees C and throw in fermenter. I seem to dry hop all my Apa's now, 2 grams / litre minimum.


I have heaps of hops to add  might dry hop some more Nelson Sauvin

Didnt realise the real ale was that high on the IBU scale opps haha


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## TwoCrows (8/1/17)

I looked it up real ale only 30 ibu in 23 ltrs.


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## clickeral (11/1/17)

TwoCrows said:


> I looked it up real ale only 30 ibu in 23 ltrs.


Yeah so with the Nelson Sauvin I am looking at about 60IBU all up 

Put down a Homebrand draught with 12g of Nelson Sauvin @10mins a packet of BE2 and 250g of golden coopers liquid malt

Should be about 20IBU and 5% I grabbed some yeast from the bottom of my 98IBU IPA and a Bright Brewery pale ale to do a small starter that has now been pitched will see if its fermenting in the morning if not then I will pitch the kit yeast

Currently at 25C and moved my ITC810 temp probe onto the new fermentor the other fermentor will drop temp but they should equalize overnight 

So happy that I can fit two fermentors in this fridge


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## rhino86 (12/1/17)

What nice find about the Coopers real ale kit, I was going to start my own thread to ask this question.
Coopers label has written SG or OG = 1038 using the coopers brew enhancer #2

However my brew was SG 1050. Which is 6.28% potential alcohol content

Coopers kit.
250g light dry malt from local homebrew store
750g dextrose from local homebrew store

Would the light dry malt and dextrose from a LHB be fresher and stronger then the packet mix?
Or is there any other reasons I ended up with a higher SG then the label?


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## Beefy (14/1/17)

rhino86 said:


> Or is there any other reasons I ended up with a higher SG then the label?


Poor mixing.


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## clickeral (14/1/17)

rhino86 said:


> What nice find about the Coopers real ale kit, I was going to start my own thread to ask this question.
> Coopers label has written SG or OG = 1038 using the coopers brew enhancer #2
> 
> However my brew was SG 1050. Which is 6.28% potential alcohol content
> ...


Brew enhancer 2 has maltodextrin in it as well about 250g from memory, youve probably added an extra 250g of dextrose


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## Beefy (14/1/17)

clickeral said:


> Brew enhancer 2 has maltodextrin in it as well about 250g from memory, youve probably added an extra 250g of dextrose


Maltodextrin will be there in the OG just like dextrose. Big difference is that maltodextrin will still be there in the FG, whereas dextrose will have converted to alcohol.

For a kit, OG way higher than expected will absolutely be the heavy sugars/malts sitting at the bottom of the fermenter when you draw your sample from the tap. Better mixing, and discarding the first ~100mL of fluid from the tap, are required for accurate readings.


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