Coopers Real Ale & Cascade / Topaz

[Pete Donohue]

So I have a couple of Coopers Real Ale kits, 250g of Cascade and 120g of Topaz. My last experiment was to boil 40g of of Mosaic for 5 minutes and tip the whole thing in the fermenter with a Coopers Australian Pale Ale so pretty comfortable with that.

So what do you think?

 

[Milhouse]

Are you brewing as a two can recipe or kit and kilo? If you are brewing a two can recipe the extract is already hopped and if you are isomerising the hops you might add too much bitterness. Dry hopping might be the go? You could split the batch, do half each way and see which turns out better.

 

[Pete Donohue]

Are you brewing as a two can recipe or kit and kilo? If you are brewing a two can recipe the extract is already hopped and if you are isomerising the hops you might add too much bitterness. Dry hopping might be the go? You could split the batch, do half each way and see which turns out better.

I was actually just going to use one kit, maybe boil 30-40g of cascade to start, pop it in the FV with the kit etc, then maybe dry hop with some Topaz. Pretty new to the game

 

[Milhouse]

When you say a kit are you referring to just the can or a pre packaged kit with a bag of dry powder as well?

If it's just a can in 23l it will be quite a weak beer.

Most of the kits have a can of hopped extract as well as 1kg of either sugar or dry malt extract which will yield a brew of about 4.5% generally.

If this is the route you go I would recommend using dry malt extract as opposed to sugar as it will result in a beer with more body and arguably better tasting.

Some people will brew with two cans of hopped extract to produce a fuller beer and can combine different kits to create different recipes. There is a great the read on here called "Battle of the toucans."

When I started out with extract I never bothered boiling as its not really necessary for extract and dry hopping is a great way to freshen up a kit. You can make a hop tea if you want to extract some bitterness but I never found this necessary with a hopped extract.

One thing I would recommend is ditching the yeast that comes with the kit and buying some proper brewing yeast. I am a big fan of Safale US-05 for American style beers.

 

[Pete Donohue]

I would use US-05 for sure Then just the can of Real Ale and BE2. Add hops at different stages (some at the start and then dry hop at the end). Reckon I'll read that thread now

 

[altone]

I would use US-05 for sure Then just the can of Real Ale and BE2. Add hops at different stages (some at the start and then dry hop at the end). Reckon I'll read that thread now

I just emptied the shelf at my local Woolies,
Got 3 cans of Coopers Real Ale for $8 a pop and 2 bags of Dextrose for $2 each.
Have LDME lying around so I'm going to use these for the rest of my 2018 brews. (Actually I'm going to do an all grain Belgian pale first)
Might add a little steeped crystal and just Cascade hops in the fermenter with 1450 yeast as I always have it handy.
Really time poor atm as we are moving house.

If anyone has a better way of using those cans - please feel free to comment