Real Ale Help

[bullsneck]

I have done a few beers in my time, with varying success.

Was watching 'Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares' last night, and Gordon was going nuts over the 'over-complication' of a restaurant's dishes. He was complaining of too many flavours.

I thought I might do a simple Coopers kit, just to change things up a bit.

Here's what I'm thinking...

- 1 Coopers Real Ale Can
- 1 Coopers Wheat Liquid Extract Can
- 500g Maltodextrin
- Amarillo: 40g (20g @ 10mins, 10g @ 5mins and dry hop 10g after the fermentation has settled down)
- Yeast will either be s-04 or I'll re-start a yeast from an old pale ale homebrew.

Do you think I have struck a good balance here with this recipe? According to the can, this kit contains '29 IBUs' when diluted to 23 litres.

Any suggestions would be great!

 

[bconnery]

I have done a few beers in my time, with varying success.

Was watching 'Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares' last night, and Gordon was going nuts over the 'over-complication' of a restaurant's dishes. He was complaining of too many flavours.

I thought I might do a simple Coopers kit, just to change things up a bit.

Here's what I'm thinking...

- 1 Coopers Real Ale Can
- 1 Coopers Wheat Liquid Extract Can
- 500g Maltodextrin
- Amarillo: 40g (20g @ 10mins, 10g @ 5mins and dry hop 10g after the fermentation has settled down)
- Yeast will either be s-04 or I'll re-start a yeast from an old pale ale homebrew.

Do you think I have struck a good balance here with this recipe? According to the can, this kit contains '560 IBUs'.

Any suggestions would be great!

I would definitely not put in 500g maltodextrin.
Some find the body it lends to be an almost soapy character.
I'd just go with the kit and wheat.
If going for Amarillo I'd suggest US05 rather than s04 myself as you don't want yeast character to interfere with the hop flavour but it would work.

 

[MVZOOM]

560 IBU's hey? That's somewhat bitter......

 

[jonocarroll]

Stolen from another beer forum (via Google)

I fell for that one myself. 710 IBU and 560IBU is for the bitterness at 1.7kg level. By the time you dilute to (say) 23litres, the IBU of the wort is no where near that level.


Coopers Kits

Lager 90 EBC 390 IBU
Draught 130 EBC 420 IBU
Real Ale 230 EBC 560 IBU
Bitter 420 EBC 620 IBU
Dark Ale 550 EBC 590 IBU
Stout 1800 EBC 710 IBU
Canadian Blonde 70 EBC 420 IBU
Bavarian Lager 90 EBC 390 IBU
Mexican Cerveza 53 EBC 300 IBU
Australian Pale Ale 90 EBC 340 IBU

This is for the concentrated form in the can - to get the figure for 23litres: multiply by 1.25 and divide by 23.
To convert EBC to SRM: SRM = (EBC - 1.2)/2.65

Therefore 710 IBU in can = 710 x 1.25 divided by 23 litres = 38 IBUs.


Here's a followup post with an email exchange between a homebrewer and someone @ Cooper's.


Quote:
QUOTE (My email)
How do you calculate how bitter a beer is?

I made a Coopers Bitter, which from your website says is 620 IBU. This is the bitterness of the tin yes?

If made to 23L, what would the bitterness of the beer be?

Would it be 620IBU/23L = 27IBU?

Thanks for your help,
Rob.

And got the reply:

QUOTE (Coopers reply)
G'day Robert. You're close. You also need to take into account the volume of can (1.25l) and allow 5% loss during fermentation:

(620 X 1.25)/23 X 95% = 32 IBU

Cheers, Frank.

Sorry for no actual advice on the recipe.

 

[seemax]

560IBU's in a 23L batch is approx 24IBU. The 40g hop boil will add about 5IBU, so you're looking at about 30IBU. This should produce a good balance , something along the lines of an american pale ale.

Definitely use US-05, you want a fairly clean flavour , not estery.

Absolutely ditch the maltodextrin, the liquid wheat malt should aid in head retention.

For future brews, why do a mini mash of wheat malt? I use a round 2L esky to mash/steep up to 500g of grain. I line the esky with some swiss voille, steep, then pull the bag and drain the wort.

 

[Bribie G]

By coincidence I am currently working my way through a batch of Coopers RE plus a kilo of Brew Enhancer 2. I did this as a demo brew for a buddy who was just taking up brewing and he sat in on the exercise.

Agree that the maltodex makes it a bit soap sudsy, although I think there's only about 300 in the BE2. I would go for 500 of LDME or even 300 LDME and 300 dex.

To my taste it's quite a bitter brew in its own right and I would, if doing something like your recipe, only do a five minute addition of say 20g and leave it at that.

My 2c

Cheers

 

[Fatgodzilla]

560 IBU's hey? That's somewhat bitter......

560 in the can, but we are going to dilute that with 22 litres or more of water ! What's a can of goo 1.8litres ? Divide 560 by 23.8 (can plus water) and this is about 25 IBUs. Does that sound correct ? Someone with Beersmith punch in the amarillo (mine's 5.8% I think) come up with a final bitterness.

This should make a semi decent american amber ale.


Edit : wayyy tooo slowwwwwwwwww .. everyone beat me to the keyboard !

 

[MVZOOM]

Aaaaah, that makes sense. That's what I get for being a smartarse! ^_^

Cheers - Mike

 

[bullsneck]

560 IBU's hey? That's somewhat bitter......

Woops! I thought that sounded extremely high. That's why I posted the question.

All fixed now.

 

[Fatgodzilla]

Aaaaah, that makes sense. That's what I get for being a smartarse! ^_^

Cheers - Mike

Never thought you anything but a gentleman !

 

[bullsneck]

To my taste it's quite a bitter brew in its own right and I would, if doing something like your recipe, only do a five minute addition of say 20g and leave it at that.

So dump the 10min boil. Sweet.

Still keen to chuck some hops in dry, probably after 7 - 9 days. That would be ok still, yeah. It would just add a nice amarillo aroma.

 

[Beer&Kebab]

If the coopers liquid wheat malt is the 1.5 kg one, then I think it is half wheat and half barley.. So that means if it was placed alone with the coopers RE can I reckon the brew would be too sweet. I like your original hop additions and recipe except for the maltodextrin..

 

[drsmurto]

I have done a few beers in my time, with varying success.

Was watching 'Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares' last night, and Gordon was going nuts over the 'over-complication' of a restaurant's dishes. He was complaining of too many flavours.

I thought I might do a simple Coopers kit, just to change things up a bit.

Here's what I'm thinking...

- 1 Coopers Real Ale Can
- 1 Coopers Wheat Liquid Extract Can
- 500g Maltodextrin
- Amarillo: 40g (20g @ 10mins, 10g @ 5mins and dry hop 10g after the fermentation has settled down)
- Yeast will either be s-04 or I'll re-start a yeast from an old pale ale homebrew.

Do you think I have struck a good balance here with this recipe? According to the can, this kit contains '29 IBUs' when diluted to 23 litres.

Any suggestions would be great!

Already been said but ditch the maltodextrin. Pointless ***** that props up brewcrafts bottom line.... (yes, i do need a coffee this morning).

Looks similar to the kit recipe i used for a JSGA clone before i went AG.

I would keep all the hop additions you have and as said, use US-05 instead of kit yeast (shudder).

250g of crystal steeped will help balance the bitterness. I believe current amarillo is around 8% AA.

 

[olde]

Drinking pretty much this recipe right now. No Maltodextrin.
Real Ale can
Coopers Wheat malt can
Boiled approx 200g of wheat malt in a litre of water, then
12g Amarillo @ 15mins
12g Cascade @ 5 mins
Threw the lot into the fermenter and made it up to 22L
S-04 (the next one will be US-05)
Plenty of flavour and aroma, and is damned tasty. Will be doing it regularly.

 

[bullsneck]

250g of crystal steeped will help balance the bitterness.

Would you steep it in roughly 75 degree water for 15mins, remove bag of grain, then boil hops in the same water?

 

[drsmurto]

Would you steep it in roughly 75 degree water for 15mins, remove bag of grain, then boil hops in the same water?

Sounds fine to me.

 

[bullsneck]

Thanks all for the help!