'battle Of The Toucans'

[AlwayzLoozeCount]

I've just bottled a toucan made with 2 cheap Brigalow kits. I reckon that @ $12 for a couple dozen longnecks you can't go too wrong.

Go for it.

cheers,

microbe

I did lager + draught brewiser toucan, smells good, sample tastes great. I pitched the yeast from the draught can I noticed the draught can expired 8/2008 still only $6 tho. Slow yeast I assume as it took 35 hours for any airlock action. Will post the results as soon as i get to taste the final product.


:beer: Cheers n Beers

 

[Jaeger]

I've just sampled my first (two hopped, non-Malt Shovel) toucan:
1 x Coopers Real Ale
1 x Coopers Draught
1kg Coopers BE2

First impressions of the (very young) brew are good, so I'll explore the format further.

Head: long-lasting, thick creamy Guinness style. Best ever!
Aroma: needs finishing hops - Goldings, probably. I thought the extra hops from the extracts would be sufficient, but I'm not a fan of Pride of Ringwood (which I assume Coopers use.)
Taste: Solid bitter hops bite to it - a refreshing change to my usual malt-driven brews. The BE2 is probably unnecessary, especially now with summer coming up.

I'm now wondering if my Stout+Draught toucan idea might have too much bitterness, but I see braver souls have tried Stout+Real Ale and Stout+Stout toucans... (I don't boil my extracts, though.)

 

[mark_m]

Coopers Stout + Coopers Old Dark + 1/2 kg DDME, both cooper's yeasts.
14 day primary, chilled 7 days, kegged.
Easy, tasty & smooth.
Mark.

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

Coopers kits are on special atm in Safeway (at least in my local). Could be time to double your discount!

 

[chartster]

Coopers kits are on special atm in Safeway (at least in my local). Could be time to double your discount!

+1, they are also on special for ~$9.90 a pop at the one on Acland St, St Kilda (VIC).

 

[mark_m]

I also have an experimental 2x Wander Munich lager with 2 x own yeast bubbling at the moment as a "cheap & cheerful" experiment. In hindsight probably should have used a better yeast as it was slow to start & taking a while to ferment out, will report back in the next few weeks.
Cheers
Mark

I thought it was time to report back on this one:

Primary 16 days, cold condition / secondary 4 weeks (no spare kegs), kegged.

First tasting - yuck! Hard to describe but some sort of infection, added 20gm NZ Hallertau in hop ball to try & mask off flavours.

Second tasting (3 weeks later), could drink it if I was dying of thirst, reluctantly. Another 20g NZ Hallertau in hop ball, some unidentifiable growth around o-ring.

Third tasting (another month) still not happy, tried to take hop ball out, lock slide fell off & hops dispersed in keg. Almost admitted defeat, gassed up & walked away.

Today (another month on), decided it was time to actually feed it to the garden, one last taste to make sure..... bugger me, lots of floaty bits (hop pellets), but what was to be my first wasted batch in some time seems to have morphed into a very drinkable, loose interpretation of a Belgian style - maybe an unintentional lambic.

This one has been an adventure, I'll enjoy the rest of the keg, but too many variables to try & repeat.

Cheers

Mark.

 

[Gulpa]

I'm still getting my AG kit together so I thought I would try a toucan last Sunday. I doesnt feel right to have never done one.

2 x Coopers Draught
250g Maltodextrin (because it was there)
200g Crystal
60g Cascade flowers
Safale US-05

Steeped crystal for 40 mins. Strained.
Boiled crystal juice with malto.
Added hops for 1 minute.
Cooled and added to fermenter with cans, water and ice.
Fermenting @ 16-18C

Tastes pretty full on from the fermenter . I will let you know how it tastes in a month or so.

Cheers,
Andrew.

 

[petesbrew]

I'll be brewing mine up today with a couple of additions

Coopers Stout
Coopers Dark Ale
375g Demerara sugar
75g leftover palm sugar
150g choc malt, steeped 30min
15g fuggles @ 15min
And a huge starter of WLP002 English Ale
filled to 23litres.

I'm expecting a lot of mess, but that's the price you pay!
Also, on bottling day I'm going to rack about 5 litres onto some mulberries for a week or so.

Wish me luck.

Tasted my stout last weekend. Got two thumbs up from the out-laws, tastes great, but a bit on the sweet side for me now.
Will move to all-malt next time.
The mulberry's still carbing up. No explosions yet from that.

Good luck with the toucan draught, Gulpa!

Pete

 

[chimera]

A friend from Gosford way and I put down a toucan for her yesterday, using 2 x Coopers Real Ale kits, with both yeasts, and nothing else added.

Yep, did a toucan of real ale last year, and just cos it wasn't already a mongrel I dry hopped it with cluster. Wasn't so bad and OG testing, but by the time it had completed fermentation it was bitter as to leave a taste in your mouth that took hours (and numerous other beers) to dislodge.

Hadn't done much with really bitter beers at that stage so I declared it undrinkable and tossed it - an act I regret still.

I say good luck to you and even if it seems undrinkable, keep and mature, see what happens. Im seriously considering doing another toucan real ale some time, but probably a real with a lager or something easy just to be sure

 

[AlwayzLoozeCount]

I did lager + draught brewiser toucan, smells good, sample tastes great. I pitched the yeast from the draught can I noticed the draught can expired 8/2008 still only $6 tho. Slow yeast I assume as it took 35 hours for any airlock action. Will post the results as soon as i get to taste the final product.
:beer: Cheers n Beers

OK i finaly got around to tasting my first toucan, I am impressed and will be experimenting with more after tasting this great drop. I am not much of a beer conisuior but i know what i like, i wish i could tell you how it tastes in technical terminology, but to me i can lean it towards coopers IPA, but not as bitter,nice malty taste.(another 500g dme and some hops would go nicely in this)

I recently made up a simple brew of just brewiser Australian Ale kit can and coopers BE2 to compare with others on the kit market because this is my first go with brewiser kits. IMHO this brewiser stuff is better than coopers or morgans, trust me, it dosnt have that twang the coopers and morgans stuff has, im only talking about supermarket suplies btw, coopers brew master selection is fantastic so im not compareing it with that kind of stuff, but for less than $6 a carton i wouldn't swap 1 carton of generic crud for a sip of this stuff, its gold.


BTW thanks to this site im making beter beer so thanks to everyone for your help, even if you didn't think you helped you helped me


hope my photo works , Tis the toucan brewiser draght + lager

 

[65bellett]

Boys, I was not sold on this Toucan thingos I only gave it half a go. I put a can of Tooheys real ale down. Made up to 11l and put the heater belt on and brewed it hard and fastkeeping it and mid 20's for about 5 days. I'm not sure if I wanted it to fail or I wanted to see just how easily I could make a drinkable beer.

After two weeks in the bottle it was pretty rough. It had really strong flavours. I can't be more precise it just had really strong flavours. I did not think much more about it until about 2 months later when a mate of mine came around. A bit of time in the bottle really helped it. It has cleared right up and is very drinkable.

My mate and I who brewed Kit and a Kilo for years both think it is far better than any thing we brewed back then. What a great way to start brewing. $8.50 for ingredients and 15 minutes hard labour. Where was this Forum 10 years ago.

 

[Randall the Enamel Animal]

I used to have a boss who drove a '65 Isuzu Bellett. Great little car.

 

[gecko]

I've thrown down a toucan Coopers lager in the past with 60g Hallertau hops. Couldn't taste or smell the hops at all mind you. After a week primary it tasted like cats p*ss so threw in a kilo of LDME and let it go fo another 2 weeks. Racked a couple of times and it came out a winner by Dr Smurto's books.

I'm currently trying it again with 1kg LDME in the primary and made to 25L to see how much different it'll be. It probably could be done with one tin and 500g of LDME made to 13L for the same result.

 

[KHB]

I just put down my first toucan

1.7kg coopers stout
1.7kg coopers dark ale
250gm LDME
250gm dex
15gm EKG @ 5mins
15gm EKG @ flame out

I did a 10min boil with the LDME and the Dex

Just waiting for my fermenter fridge to get it to 18.c to pitch both the yeasts.

Looking forward to the outcome

 

[Bulldog_y2k6]

toucans I have done
Choc Stout Mahogony Toucan
1 x coopers Stout tin,
1 x Cascade Choc Mahag Porter,
500g DDME,
0.25kg Choc Malt Grain (steeped in 1Lt water for 15min - bought up to boil from cold then steep),
22L,
pitched 0.6L of yeastcake (Wyeast 1098) from Kenzie EQPA
OG 1.060, FG have to get back to you.

citymorgue2

I realise you made this brew some time ago but can you remember how it turned out??? Would you make any hop additions??

Cheers Bulldog

 

[boingk]

Toucan Homebrand Lager, that was my big shot at the Toucan game. I used the two stock cans and a packet of dried US-05 yeast, and it turned out quite good! If I'm in a pinch again I'd do it in a snap, but I'd probably have rathered a good German style lager for a few bucks more and a bit more effort.

 

[FireBlade]

I've done this a couple of times now:

1.2Kg Thomas Coopers Premium Draught
1.0Kg Morgans Master Blend Wheat Malt
300g Dextrose
20g Cascade boiled in 1lt for 3mins, not strained
20g Cascade dry with top up
11.5g Safale US-05 yeast pitched @ 24c
Fermented at 18c

It makes up a real nice APA style and has been received well by everyone who's tried it. In fact I racked another one the same Monday night.

 

[0M39A]

I've done this a couple of times now:

1.2Kg Thomas Coopers Premium Draught
1.0Kg Morgans Master Blend Wheat Malt
300g Dextrose
20g Cascade boiled in 1lt for 3mins, not strained
20g Cascade dry with top up
11.5g Safale US-05 yeast pitched @ 24c
Fermented at 18c

It makes up a real nice APA style and has been received well by everyone who's tried it. In fact I racked another one the same Monday night.

Not really a twocan though is it just a 1can + extras.

the whole point of a twocan is to just use 2 cans of hopped extract, then you get twice the bitterness as well.

That said though, looks like it would be a pretty decent brew. probably could do with a touch more bitterness though. next time try it with 2 cans of *insert can name here* instead and see how it turns out.

havent made a twocan in ages, should do another twocan stout again soon, last one was fantastic.

2 * coopers stout
1kg dark dried extract
50g (iirc) fugges hops steeped for a few min then dumped into the batch.
s-04 yeast
23L

had one of the nicest thickest heads ive seen on a stout, plenty of bitterness to boot and a nice alcoholic kick. plenty of chocolate and roasted and coffee flavours. went down a treat during winter. still have 1 bottle somewhere i think. had one a few weeks ago, age has done this beer well.

 

[brettprevans]

citymorgue2

I realise you made this brew some time ago but can you remember how it turned out??? Would you make any hop additions??

Cheers Bulldog

I love it. great beer suprisingly for no hop additions. mind you the tin of stout is fairly bitter and actualy masks the can of mahojany porter. Considering it is a K&K and its something I put together myself its great. Its also better than the brewcraft Guinness clone (Ive made 2 of brewcrafts kit and never touched them again).

Hop additons you could add would be something like the below if you drop the stout kit, or just get rid of EKG for bittering and throw it in for flavour/aroma at 15min.
28g. EKG @ 60 min.
12g Fuggle @ 15 min.

you could also use Willamette instead of Fuggles if you wanted.

If you like real stout, you'll like this. obviously you can alter the recipe to suit. ie add more choc grain and cut back on roasted grain or vice versa.

 

[brewgirl]

I just put down a 'half arsed' toucan... I was board last night and had the brewcraft munich lager in the cupboard that came with the starter kit... I put that with 12L of water and half the bag of 'lager enhancer' that came with it, just used the kit yeast. Didn't want to do a whole brew coz I'm moving in a couple of weeks. Don't know how good it will turn out, just doing it to experiment a bit, and I need practice keeping temps down.