Simple improvements to Coopers kits?

[4lex]

Gday all. Have been brewing kits for a year or so, and have taken very little care or note of how exactly. The fermenting fridge is set at 22, have basically just been chucking the ingredients in per the instructions on the can and found the results to be pretty consistently good. Last few we've transferred to another fermenter and batch primed before bottling which seemed like a good idea, but none of those have been opened yet.

I can't really be bothered with the all grain approach, my mate and I manage to bottle and put another two brews on every ten days or so and it only takes about 90 minutes versus a whole day the couple of times we've gone with grain.

Question is, are there any simple steps or other ingredients you guys would recommend to improve the quality of the output? Going to put on a sparkling and a real this arvo, and just looking at the Coopers website I see their 'how to brew' calls for malts, which we've not tried before:
http://www.coopers.com.au/the-brewers-guild/how-to-brew/ale/unreal-ale
http://www.coopers.com.au/the-brewers-guild/how-to-brew/ale/coopers-sparkling-ale

Anything else I could pick up from the homebrew shop as a simple addition/substitution ?

Cheers all,
Alex

 

[QldKev]

Steeping grains and hops, and since you already have a fermenting fridge look at better yeasts.

In really basic terms..

To step grains.
Get grains to steep and wrap in a swiss voile bag.
Preheat a couple litres of water to about 70c
Drop grain bag into water. (or if pouch is still open at top, peg top to side of container)
After an hour or so, jungle bag like a tea bag and remove.
Dump yummy juice into your wort.


Hops.
You can throw in a handful (say 15 to 25g) in the fermenter
OR
boil up some wort from your fermenter and add the hops and boil for 10mins, tip into fermenter.

Yeast.
Pick a decent yeast and replace your kit yeast.

It's as easy as that, and will improve the beers.

If you read kit recipes on here in the recipeDB, there are a lot of ideas.

 

[alimac23]

Steeping grains and hops, and since you already have a fermenting fridge look at better yeasts.

In really basic terms..

To step grains.
Get grains to steep and wrap in a swiss voile bag.
Preheat a couple litres of water to about 70c
Drop grain bag into water. (or if pouch is still open at top, peg top to side of container)
After an hour or so, jungle bag like a tea bag and remove.
Dump yummy juice into your wort.


Hops.
You can throw in a handful (say 15 to 25g) in the fermenter
OR
boil up some wort from your fermenter and add the hops and boil for 10mins, tip into fermenter.

Yeast.
Pick a decent yeast and replace your kit yeast.

It's as easy as that, and will improve the beers.

If you read kit recipes on here in the recipeDB, there are a lot of ideas.

+1 /\ ,This

Steeping grains and using a better quality yeast, plus hop additions is an easy and great way to improve kit brews.

 

[4lex]

Cheers both. I'm a big fan of little creatures bright, the last sparkling we put on wasn't a million miles from it. What sort of grain/yeast would you recommend to achieve that kind of result? What would you go with in the real ale?

 

[Mick74]

In addition to what the other guys have said I'd think lowering your ferment temp a few degrees.

 

[QldKev]

Maybe a Real Ale
750 Light Dried Malt
250g Dried Wheat Malt Extract

300g Cara-Pils steeped

30g Cascade
30g B Saaz

Get a pot / esky / bowl and start steeping the Cara-pils.
Have a search on here for steeping grains. Plenty of detailed info.

Get a second pot that can boil at least 2L of water.
For every Litre of water in the pot add 100g of the Dried Malt extract, and bring to the boil.
Once you have a decent boil set your timer for 20mins. Add half the Cascade and half the B Saaz.
At the end of the 20min throw in the remaining hops and stir.

Thow malt mix into fermenter and add everything else.

Ferment with Us-05 at 19c

It will be the best beer yet.

 

[verysupple]

As others have said, particularly about the US-05 and slightly lower ferment temps.

You say you do a couple of batches every 10 days or so....I'd leave them in the fermentor for just a little longer - about 2 to 3 weeks. It'll help them clear up quicker and you won't need to let them sit in the bottles as long before they start tasting really good.

 

[Josho]

Last brew I just did with a Pale ale was

Safale 05 yeast and a Amarillo tea bag,
ferment around 16-18 degrees

two and a half weeks FG1009 and smells and tastes lovely,

 

[alimac23]

Cheers both. I'm a big fan of little creatures bright, the last sparkling we put on wasn't a million miles from it. What sort of grain/yeast would you recommend to achieve that kind of result? What would you go with in the real ale?

Hey, i've brewed this kit before, it's a little creatures clone and it tastes amazing!

http://www.westbrew.com.au/showProduct/Beer+Recipes+-+All+You+Need/Fremantle+Pale+Ale+recipe/W0370068

It's very simple to brew and this was the first kit i made that was any more complex than a Kit and Kilo, it tastes so much nicer even just with the dry hop additions.

 

[4lex]

Cheers all. Will wind the fridge up a couple of notches, which I guess will have the effect of lengthening the ferment time anyway.

WRT the time in the fermenter, we're not having any problems with the clarity of the finished product, which always spends at least a month in the bottles. Trying to fill up lots of bottles over winter as they seem to be conditioning just fine in a dark cupboard in the laundry this time of year. Problem is consumption is running at about 30 bottles/week between us, so if we only bottle every two weeks we'll not make any progress...

I guess we'll have to get more fermenters and another fridge and give them a bit more time in the tubs. Seems like a ute-full of king browns take some filling

 

[DU99]

get the pinned spreadsheet from here and have a play.it includes the Dr's golden ale recipe,

 

[431neb]

If you like stout and CBF with a lot of rooting around then a bog standard Coopers stout from the supermarket along with brew blend 2 and 900grams (was on hand) of pale malt (dry) in 23 ish litres. I'm not positive on the hops but knowing me it would've been 20 grams of simcoe boiled in some off the cuff mix of the malt and a few litres of water for ten minutes. I kegged this one and was gutted when it blew. Don't drive after a few of these!

I just found my notes - Mine was 1.062 and finished at 1.016. The info above is correct.

Some confusion about the yeast. I pitched onto some lager yeast left in a secondary and threw a kit yeast on it because I thought I was under pitching. The ferment was at about 15 degrees because I was having an each way bet on which yeast would prevail.

I'm all grain now and loving it (apart from the time as you have noted) but I will do this again as it was that good (really!). Will be interesting to see if I can repeat this without the lager yeast.

 

[Cloth Ears]

I've found that lowering the temp on bog standard Coopers Ales doesn't really improve the end product. It just takes a bit longer to ferment. If you start using other yeasts, then this does not apply.

Some simple additions before you play with yeasts (and you can try them separately, to see if they improve your beer, before you try them together):
Use a can of liquid malt (dark or light) instead of dextrose/sugar (slightly less alcohol, darker and more malty).
Add half a kilo of Light Dry Malt to the whole thing (a bit more alcohol and 'maltier').
Pitch some Citra hops into your fermenter after about 5 days (flavour similar, but interesting smell).
Use half a kilo CSR brown sugar (similar to dark malt, but with some interesting frouty side effects).

 

[westozah]

Just tried this one after 1 month in the bottle. Tasting very nice, similar to JS Golden Ale. Just started using Safale US-05 and will never use kit yeast again! I am amazed at the difference!

Coopers Pale Ale Can
Coopers Wheat Malt Can
US-05 Yeast
2x15 Gm Copper Tun Amarillo Hop Bags - steeped in boiling water for 10 mins, then add water and bags to fermenter.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

[Cube]

You can reuse the yeast now you are using better stuff. Split the trub that is left over after a brew into two 'batches'. Leave half in the fermenter and biff a new brew on top of that and away you go using no new yeast just the trub.

Basically just pour out half the gungy trub into a sterile bottle leaving half behind. Bingo - free yeast for you. A easy 4 brews from one yeast packet.

Just tried this one after 1 month in the bottle. Tasting very nice, similar to JS Golden Ale. Just started using Safale US-05 and will never use kit yeast again! I am amazed at the difference!

Coopers Pale Ale Can
Coopers Wheat Malt Can
US-05 Yeast
2x15 Gm Copper Tun Amarillo Hop Bags - steeped in boiling water for 10 mins, then add water and bags to fermenter.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

[Three Sheets]

Good tips I see. Liquid malt is an easy win imo. also consider using two cans of Coopers kit, and play with hop tea/bag.

Grains another step up but it gets to how much stuffing around you want to do.

My best brew was a full grain job but it takes up too much of my time.

 

[Yob]

Good tips I see. Liquid malt is an easy win imo. also consider using two cans of Coopers kit, and play with hops tea/bag.

Grains another step up but it gets to how much stuffing around you want to do.

My best brew was a full grain job but it takes up too much of my time.

Hop tea bags are a waste of time and money..

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