Review: My First Toucan (believe The Hype)

[waggastew]

As with many AHB'ers, I have had a go at a toucan in an effort to use the 'Came With The Kit' Coopers lager tin. After a bit of reading on AHB the recipe was as follows:

1 x Coopers Original Lager
1 x Coopers Original Dark Ale
14g of Goldings Hops (steeped in boiling H2O for 5 mins, all in)
1/2 Vanilla bean (infused in 30mL of vodka for 1 week then all in)
2tbs of cocoa and 1 star anise boiled in 100mL H2O for 10min then all in
US-04 Yeast

Brewed at 16-18degC for 4 weeks. Bottled with 'a bit less than' 1tsp sugar on 15/8/10 (last dark ale was a bit prickly from too much CO2)

Tasting Notes: Pours with a nice creamy head, dark red/brown colour around spec for a dark ale. Carbonation is spot on, plenty of fine bubbles but much softer on the palate than a previous attempt. Head retention is excellent, still 1cm of head at the bottom of the glass and plenty of 'tide marks'. Aroma is very Goldings, hint of vanilla, no cocoa or star anise.

Strong bitterness in the mouth but balanced, vanilla is in the background but not nasty ala Gloria Jeans Jamaican Vanilla Whirlwind Mega Fruppacino . Could probably do with a touch more malt, will try steeping some crystal/choc malt in the next batch. Very good mouth feel, much better than previous attempt at Dark Ale which was thin. This version is Tooheys Old for someone who likes 'real' beer.

Overall I am really happy with this. With a bit more tweaking (steep some malt) and this will be my house Dark Ale recipe. I read yesterday about a three-can recipe for a Imperial Stout. Might be next winters challenge?

Stew

 

[enuun]

Looks great stew =)
You jus remind me that I am down to 6 bottles of my dark ale and need to brew some again soon!

 

[J Grimmer]

Awesome, this looks like insperation for my next batch.

J

 

[Bribie G]

In my kits days I never had a bad toucan, and in fact I reckon that a toucan is the kit that they should be putting out as a 3 kilo deal (like ESB cans if they are still available) - the kilo o'sugar deal is surely the biggest cause home brew tasting like bloody home brew. Even though I'm full-mash brewing nowadays I still crank out a toucan headbanger coopers 9% stout a couple of times a year and it's like mother's milk . :icon_cheers:

Edit: and last year I sent a bottle to an AHB member who ended up as a judge of stouts at this years' national comps (he's now an acreddited BJCP judge and passed the exams) and he made very favourable comments on it.

 

[Lodan]

This looks and sounds like a good beer mate. I look forward to reading about the next revision too!

 

[olde]

Looks good, will have to have a crack at that. One Q. Seppo or Pommy yeast? US-05, or S-04.

 

[voskar]

I've done something similar.

Coopers Dark Ale
Coopers Lager
350gm White Sugar
250gm Golden Syrup
US05 yeast
25 litres

Surprising it was not that bitter.
Very good in fact.
Maybe next time add some Crystal Malt.

 

[waggastew]

Looks good, will have to have a crack at that. One Q. Seppo or Pommy yeast? US-05, or S-04.

S-04 - Ale Yeast, just the dry stuff

 

[brettprevans]

I've done something similar.

Coopers Dark Ale
Coopers Lager
350gm White Sugar
250gm Golden Syrup
US05 yeast
25 litres

Surprising it was not that bitter.
Very good in fact.
Maybe next time add some Crystal Malt.

Glad to see blokes experimenting and tweaking toucans.

It's not supposing ur one above wasn't bitter as you've picked not hugely butter cans, then added 0.5kg of damn sweet and not fully fermentables and increased the batch size up to 25L (ie diluted it). As u add more fermentables you then start needing to add more bitterness ie hops or higher ibu cans of goo.

Keep up the brewing work.

In regards to OP, great to see the experimentation. Next time add ur spices in the secondary or after fermentation is easing. The production of co2 scrubs out a lot of flavours ESP the more delicate ones

 

[olde]

Cheers Stew, thanks for that. Also cm2, will try that myself , thanks.

 

[kalbarluke]

Wow. That looks realy good. I have always thought about doing a toucan but never really got around to it, but your extensive notes have helped me make up my mind. The beer looks nice and as some people have already stated, using S-04 yeast would probably improve it even more.

Thanks Stew.

 

[brettprevans]

Generally speaking kit yeast is shit. Keep it and boil it up then use it as yeast nutrient. Dry yeasts like s04, s23 us05 etc are fine to use. In fact 5 first place winners at nationals this year used dry yeasts.

 

[electronicshaman]

That looks mighty tasty!

I just bottled my first toucan but went the cheapo route and just dropped 1 tooheys lager with 1 tooheys draught (on sale at coles ) Added 1 BE1 plus 500gm LDME, pitched with two Coopers kit yeasts and crossed my fingers. I'm still a bit green when it comes to brewing and thought I'd stuffed it cos it looked like muddy water when I bottled it. A few days in the bottle and it's settled quite nicely. I don't have high hopes but it is experimental after all.

edit: I also dry hopped with 15g Goldings after 5 days (it's all I had on hand) I like a bitter beer so I'll be interested to see where it ends up

 

[hoppinmad]

Even though I'm full-mash brewing nowadays I still crank out a toucan headbanger coopers 9% stout a couple of times a year and it's like mother's milk . :icon_cheers:

Sounds nice. Got the recipe there for us?