Recipedb - Coopers Pale Ale Clone

[MaggieO]

Ordered some Cooper's dried yeast and some Pow hops. Going to give this a try.

Can't seems to find Cooper's anywhere in the area. Just going to dive in blind!

Is the Cooper's Australian Pale Ale canned kit similar to the Cooper's Pale Ale canned product. Was thinking of giving it a try but don't want to have 23 liters of it. I usually do ten to twelve liter batches.

Happy brewing!

 

[MaggieO]

Got my Cooper's yeast and PoR hops today. Now to find some time to brew.

All the Best,
D. White

 

[MaggieO]

Got a six pack of Cooper's Pale Ale locally. Has a "Best After" date of 13 December 2019. Paid USD $13.50 for it. Much better beer than any Bud, Miller, Coor's product I ever had.

Made a starter and pitched the yeast from a couple bottles. It's alive and growing!

Never had a Cooper's Pale Ale before. This has a toasted flavor almost of roast barley which I really like. Is this a product of the yeast or need I toast some pale malt in the oven?

 

[MHB]

The "Best After" date on Coopers is 2 weeks from bottling, time for it to condition properly and I think they hold it in their warehouse for those two weeks.
Basically its just Ale malt with maybe a smidge of Crystal malt, more for hue correction (more gold than yellow) than for colour.
I suspect if you are used to drinking US mass market beer what you are tasting is malt and yeast flavours, my personal experience of those above is, well the term "canoe beer" comes to mind.
I wouldn't go putting any Roast in the grain bill if you are brewing from grain try 99.5% Ale malt and 0.5% Medium Crystal, if a kit, the Coopers Pale Ale kit should be very close, especially if you use the re-cultured bottle yeast, just watch your ferment temp and pitch rate, get a bit too warm or under pitch and it can throw a lot of banana and other esters which aren't really part of the flavour you would be looking for.
Mark

 

[MaggieO]

I haven't had a mass market (Bud, Miller, Coor's) US beer in at least ten years, probably longer.

Figured this had to be a fairly simple grain bill. That roasted, toasted flavor is pretty pronounced though, to me at least.

 

[MHB]

Well it cant be Roast, to get enough Roast into the beer to get a roasty flavour is going to give you a much darker beer.
From the Coopers website only 8 EBC.
Mark

 

[pcmfisher]

So by adding a small amount of yeast just before packaging mean they have killed off the original yeast and are adding maybe a different strain?

 

[Grmblz]

So by adding a small amount of yeast just before packaging mean they have killed off the original yeast and are adding maybe a different strain?

What's interesting with Coopers kits is the included dried yeast, they supply 5 different yeasts (at least the packaging is different) dependant on which kit you buy.

From their website:

6. What strain of yeast is supplied with with my brew can?
Yeast Strain/s are denoted by the R Product Code on the back of the sachet, beneath the Julian Date Code. The Julian Date Code is the packaged date and is a five-digit format counting the number of days into the year, e.g. for yeast packaged on the 11th of March 2020 = 70th day of 2020, it will display as 07020.

Summary:

• C – R007 = Coopers ale yeast. Our own strain, which was developed in-house, but it is not the same strain as the yeast in our commercial ales???
  
  
• C+L – R3426 = A blend of our Coopers ale yeast and a lager strain.
  
  
• A – R3554/R3555/R3557/R3559 = various ale yeasts*
  
  
• L – R3422/R3556 = various lager yeasts*
  
  
• W – R3558 = wheat yeast*

These strains are commercially available dry yeasts and their details are held in confidence. Listed below against each brewing extract, we’ve detailed the yeast type, then the R Product Code, followed by an example Julian Date Code in brackets.

Detailed Information:

Original Series

• C – R007 (07020)

International Series

• Australian Pale Ale: C+L – R3426 (07020)
• Mexican Cerveza: C+L – R3426 (07020)
• European Lager: L – R3422 (07020)
• Canadian Blonde: C – R007 (07020)
• English Bitter: C – R007 (07020)
• Irish Stout: A – R3554 (07020)

Thomas Cooper's Series

• Bootmaker Pale Ale: A – R3559 (07020)
• Brew A IPA: A – R3559 (07020)
• Devil's Half Ruby Porter: A – R3557 (07020)
• Family Secret Amber Ale: A – R3559 (07020)
• Innkeeper's Daughter Sparkling Ale: A – R3555 (07020)
• Preacher's Hefe Wheat: W – R3558 (07020)
• 86 Days Pilsner: L – R3556 (07020)

Mr Beer Craft Series

All of the Mr Beer Brewing Extracts use the C+L blend. The Julian Date Code is the only code listed on the sachet.

 

[An Ankoù]

Well it cant be Roast, to get enough Roast into the beer to get a roasty flavour is going to give you a much darker beer.
From the Coopers website only 8 EBC.
Mark
View attachment 117744

I had a go at making some of this. We occasionally get Cooper's beers through Saveur Bière here in sunny Brittany, and I prefer the OPA to the Sparkling Ale (red label). Didn't have all the information that MHB posted, above, so had to guess.
Made up culture from a bottle of OPA and Sparkling (presumed they used the same yeast). Worked towards 4.5% abv, but having no idea of the attenuation properties of this yeast, I went for an OG of 1045. IBUs at 24, ok, but used Vic Secret instead of PoR (wrong guess!) and barley malt at 5.5 ebc.
It came out all right: my notes on 14th Feb "No great shakes. Drinkable, but not brilliant"; on 10th March "Much better. Thinking of doing another".
A couple of questions:
Is the yeast in the bottles likely to be the yeast they use for fermentation or is it likely to be a bottling yeast.
Pale malt at EBC is pretty dark. I'd be tempted to substitute Bestmalz (Heidelberg, Germany) Vienna malt at 8ebc. This might give the toasty flavour @MaggieO talks about, above. Any thoughts?
Right, off to look for some bottles of OPA and get some PoR hops. Would welcome any pointers on this one. Thanks in advance.

 

[MHB]

I'm pretty sure the bottling yeast is the same as that used in the main ferment, apparently they use the same house yeast in all the Coopers beers (well the traditional ones - Pale Ale, Sparkling Ale, Mid, Dark and Stout - not so sure about some of their newer offerings).
Point to remember about the colour of a malt (EBC) is that it is the measured colour of a congress mash, that is in wort made at a water to grain (L:G) ratio of 8:1, yielding a wort around 8oP (~1.032) so it will always be a darker at normal brewing gravities and will darken more during boiling.
Once upon a time Coopers used almost exclusively Schooner malt, which is harder to get these days and interesting in that it will almost always give you the same wort (like Coopers) no matter what you do with it.
Given where you are, I would lean more toward a UK Ale malt than a German one, the heritage of Coopers is very English, Perl or Golden Promise would be good choices.
The Hops are bittering only, if you have any problems getting POR, Target would be a good call, any of a bunch of other favour neutral hops would serve, they aren't there for flavour just bitterness.

As an aside, I discovered Coopers in my late teens (end of the 1970's) and am still drinking it, I would have drunk more Coopers than all other beers added together, its had its ups and downs over that time but its still an estimable beer, well worth putting something like it on tap at home, easy to drink, pleases most people (certainly me), a beer that improves over time, up to years in bottle.
Mark

 

[An Ankoù]

I'm pretty sure the bottling yeast is the same as that used in the main ferment, apparently they use the same house yeast in all the Coopers beers (well the traditional ones - Pale Ale, Sparkling Ale, Mid, Dark and Stout - not so sure about some of their newer offerings).
Point to remember about the colour of a malt (EBC) is that it is the measured colour of a congress mash, that is in wort made at a water to grain (L:G) ratio of 8:1, yielding a wort around 8oP (~1.032) so it will always be a darker at normal brewing gravities and will darken more during boiling.
Once upon a time Coopers used almost exclusively Schooner malt, which is harder to get these days and interesting in that it will almost always give you the same wort (like Coopers) no matter what you do with it.
Given where you are, I would lean more toward a UK Ale malt than a German one, the heritage of Coopers is very English, Perl or Golden Promise would be good choices.
The Hops are bittering only, if you have any problems getting POR, Target would be a good call, any of a bunch of other favour neutral hops would serve, they aren't there for flavour just bitterness. either in the

Mark

Thanks Mark, I'll bear all that in mind. I was a bit dubious at using all Vienna. I normally get my supplies from the UK as, even with freight factored in, it's much cheaper than buying it in Europe. After an hour's searching, I can't find anyone who sells PoR either in the UK or in France/Belgium/Netherlands. So I'll see if I can get a quote from an Australian supplier or take your advice about the Target. Thanks again.

 

[matt77]

Just did one of these on sunday..
Only now reading your recipe... i forgot the whirlfloc... DOH

 

[MaggieO]

Got my Cooper's yeast and PoR hops today. Now to find some time to brew.

All the Best,
D. White

Bottled this up today. Made 3.5 U.S. gallons. OG 1.046. FG 1.006. I think the color is a little dark for a clone. ABV is a bit high too at 5.25%.

Used a 1/2 pound of malt I toasted in the oven for 10 minutes at 350F. Think I got the "toasted" flavor I was looking for.

Only had a few teaspoons of built up yeast from the starter I made from the bottle. Pitched the starter yeast and let it roll for eight hours. Then ptched a full pack of Coopers brewing yeast.

Interested to see where this is in three weeks.

MO