Boil Coopers Cans To Remove Flavour/aroma?

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slash22000

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So, as a Christmas present on behalf of my family, I've finally got my hands on a 40 litre urn for brewing. I intend to move to BIAB grain brewing when I can, but for now I am limited to making extract brews in it (hooray, Darwin). Thing is though, extract is expensive. My local Big W etc only ever stock maybe a half dozen Coopers dry malt boxes at a time (and you need a lot of them to make a 100% extract beer).

A 1.7 kg basic Coopers Original can is $11.50 from Big W, while 0.5 kg of dry malt is $5.75. A 1.7kg liquid extract can is approximately 1.5kg worth of of dry extract, so that's $17.25 worth of dry malt (if they have any).

Coopers recommend you do not boil their cans, because it apparently drives off flavour etc. What I'm wondering is, is it possible to boil off all the aroma/bitterness/etc from a Coopers can and basically reduce it to unhopped extract? That's a 50% saving in costs if it's possible.

Also, because I know it's the simple solution, there are no brewshops in Darwin that sell unhopped extract. That is, we have one (singular) brewshop and they sell their own unhopped extract and it's much more expensive than the Coopers variety.

Thanks in advance guys/girls. Happy holidays!
 
No. The bitterness will remain. What aroma is there would reduce. Just use the can as is + dry malt + hops + good yeast until you can get your BIAB going. Or pay the price for all extract brew.
 
I think the coppers kits would have a high percent of other adjuncts in there tins like basic sugars and so on, that might be part of the price difference is the quality. What yeast are you using for the kit brews?
 
No. The bitterness will remain. What aroma is there would reduce. Just use the can as is + dry malt + hops + good yeast until you can get your BIAB going. Or pay the price for all extract brew.

I'm enclined to agree with Rudi 101.

However, in my opinion, the increase in quality from using un-bittered malt (malt extract either dry or liquid) for the cost involved could easily be worth it.

If you are educated enough about boiling and hop schedules, using a coopers can plus extra's will only get you so far.

If not "ready" to go AG just yet, I'd be enclined to still go with the unbittered extract, add some hops and not worry so much about the extra $10 bucks or so this may add to the cost of the brew.

Or if it were me, it sounds like your definitely planning to go AG, so i'd plan out the next three or four brews that you'd like to do with grain, and then order them from CB (qld). that should shift the cost of freight vs cost of ingredients your way, and you'll be up and running making awesome AG beer in no time.

Such a waste having an awesome BIAB vessel and not putting it to good use. (not trying to open that can of worms of extract vs AG)
 
Thanks for the replies guys. As I suspected, simply shouldering the cost seems the way to go.

I don't really want to use bittered cans at all now that I have my urn, if I can avoid it. Drinking Sierra Nevada Pale Ale etc has enlightened me to what beer without Pride of Ringwood (i.e. Coopers kits) could be ... Unfortunately I still have a few cans in my possession and I guess I will use them up, I don't want them to go off or anything.

Or if it were me, it sounds like your definitely planning to go AG, so i'd plan out the next three or four brews that you'd like to do with grain, and then order them from CB (qld). that should shift the cost of freight vs cost of ingredients your way, and you'll be up and running making awesome AG beer in no time.

I am definitely planning on going full grain BIAB ASAP. Trouble is that ordering grain to Darwin is an extra $50 - $60 of shipping fees on top of the $60 - $80 per bulk grain bag so it's not an expense I can just throw to the wind. Next pay day (late January?) I plan on buying a sack of base malt and forgetting extract forever. Trouble is that people recommend about 6 different base malts depending on style ... but I figure any base malt is probably better/cheaper than buying light dry extract.

For now, I have a can of unhopped wheat malt, a 100g bag of Amarillo and some dry extract I'm going to use to make a Dr Smurto Golden Ale. It seems to be the classic beer AHB brewers break out from kits with. :ph34r:
 
If you gotta use the cans for now, coopers Canadian blonde and Mexican cerveza are known to be pretty bland, enough to boil and consider the flavour minimal post boil. I've done it, with some water added and a flavour addition of hops. Turns up nice, in your case, expense will be lower than buying straight extract. Added sugar to the boil too, would've been too cloying with just the malt tins, my guess is the cans are higher in unfermentable sugars than straight extract.
 

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