Coopers best extra stout recipe (AG)

[Kingy]

Having looked around the forums there's not much info on this beer, i personally haven't enjoyed it in the past but the last few months this beer in largys is apart of my afternoon drive home from work ritual.
I'm looking at brewing this soon and as there's little available and outdated info on this I wonder if anybody has had a crack at it and can contribute to this thread.

 

[stakka82]

I have often wondered... I would say english yeast, a fair whack of roast barley, and a bit more late hopping that your usual stout, fermented on the warm side about 20 odd degrees.

Could be totally wrong but that's my stab in the dark, not sure if they might actually even use the pale/sparking yeast?

 

[stef]

Loosely speaking, you should get close with:

Pale malt to about 80%
Wheat to about 10%
10% roasted (split between choc and RB)
Bitter to about 40 ibu with POR
Reculture coopers yeast to ferment (all coopers uses the same yeast)

Wont be exact, but a good starting point.

 

[TheWiggman]

The infamous whiteboard shot showed the following proportions of malts - pale 5000, wheat 440 and black 600. So 83% / 7% / 10%. DrSmurto posted about this a few years ago now without feedback so I was wondering whether anyone's tried it. I'd personally sub the EKG for PoR, but that's me. I have a feeling Coopers would use PoR in the original recipe.

All reports are that a high proportion of black malt will contribute to charcoal, but I'm wondering whether it works in this brew. BES certainly is a no-nonsense FES.

Yeast, 100% must be Coopers or WLP009.

Has anyone brewed a 10% black malt beer with wheat before? Feedback?

 

[hoppy2B]

I did a high gravity extract porter with a kilo of dry wheat extract a couple of years ago. It had 160 grams of POR at flame-out and it was no chilled. Fermented it with Coopers bottle yeast. Turned out ok.

I don't think you want to aim for too many IBU from your hops as the roast barley will contribute bitterness. I'm not one for lightly hopped beers generally.

S04 with all grain wheat and Golding hops seems to work. I've become a fan of dry yeast. Don't need anything else. Too much fluffling around with the other stuff.

 

[TheWiggman]

Ahh... was this in response to my post? I'm querying about black malt specifically, not dark coloured malt. I've done 500g roast barley in a stout before and it was very decent. It had a different character to Coopers BES though.

 

[TheWiggman]

ALRIGHTY I brewed this recipe back in April and have it on tap at the moment. I bought a longneck of Coopers Best Extra Stout and put them up against one another. Mine's on the left, a small sample only for comparison:

Mine came in at 6.6% vs. BES at 6.3%. Colour-wise they're both black but the Coopers has darker head. Mine ended up being a tan mocha, which surprised me for a 10% black malt beer. Aromatically they're very similar but the Coopers yeast comes through slightly, whereas I used Scottish Ale yeast so the difference is to be expected. Taste-wise however the Coopers example is notably more bitter and has a slightly more aggressive 'smokey' malt character about it and tastes thinner. Mine is very easy to drink but side-by-side it comes across fuller at 1.011 and less acrid. They both have their merits, I wouldn't put the Coopers ahead of it but whilst similar the recipe is no clone. I wuold prefer either depending on the occasion: I really like my beer, but I also really like Coopers.
Moving ahead

• I went with 33g of Super Pride at 60 mins for 47 IBU. This isn't biiter enough, I'd up it next time.
• 10% JW black malt isn't enough for acridity of the real thing. Either throw in some choc, RB or up the black
• Lower FG required. Can't be replicated without the real yeast but go for a dry finish because that's how it comes across.

Both beers very enjoyable, but the white board recipe doesn't come across as a clone.

 

[Jack of all biers]

Up IBU's to around 65. I use RB, but that's me. And the wheat is adding to the body. Maybe replace all or some with flaked barley. Also if you can get it, try some Southwick Stout. Similar to coopers, but stronger ash notes. A really good comparison to coopers and they obviously use a fair amount of black malt in their stout.

 

[dammag]

Are you guys milling the roast grains with the other grains or are you grinding them separately?

I have read that the roast grains can be ground quite fine to get more character out of them.

This might aid in getting the acrid flavour apparent in Coppers Stout?