Without having done anything on the stout side of things, I'd say that your plan was pretty much doable. The things I would look out for are as follows...
- I would probably consider steeping a hop tea bag instead of dry hopping to help the older kit out in terms of flavour of the beer. Dry hopping would add a nice aroma, but I suspect that if you are using an older kit then you might run into trouble with the balance of the beer (overly bitter and aromatic without a good hop taste/flavour). I'd be using either EKG or *maybe* Fuggles for this, although I am sure that others will pitch in with better suggestions...
- If you are after a drier style of stout, don't go too heavy with the LDME. I have seen on another thread that one of the Coopers brewers has said that a perfect toucan combo would be a Coopers Stout + a Coopers Dark Ale kit. What you are planning would be pretty close to that equation, so I would reconsider the need for extra LDME esp seeing as though you are after a drier stout
- I'd consider using either US-05 or Nottingham yeast, both of which are fairly agressive in their attenuation. The Notto in my mind would be a bit more suitable, especially if you are going to be doing some additional hopping. The US-05 gives a really dry result, but it may give an even bigger hop boost to your brew than you might be planning. This toucan will end up to be a pretty big beer IMHO, so you might want to use a yeast that isn't going to go overboard in highlighting the hops (unless that is really, really what you want... :icon_cheers: ) The Notto will convert a lot of the obvious sugars/malts while not emphasising the hops outrageously
Take this advise with a few grains of salt. I have NO experience with this myself, and what I have proposed is merely a compilation of other advise that I have seen on AHB to problems that are similar to yours. Wait to see what others propose before you commit to anything I have put down here.
Let us know how you go!
Many thanks GG, sounds fine to me and taken on board. Not a lot of interest evidently, but that's allright too.
Now, I've gotten impatient, and actually just finished putting this one to bed, here's where I went wrong:
1.7 kg Coopers Stout
1.7 kg Coopers Draught (actually BBF 07 03 05, which makes it a smidgen over four years out of date!)
250g LDME
100g Roasted Barley
12g Cascade hops (i.e. a teabag, opened) boiled loose for just 5 mins
I boiled up 4 litres rainwater, added the two tins. Back to the boil, then in goes the LDME (I was suss on its sanitation). In the mean time, the roughly whizzed (yep, less than ideal) barley has been steeping in about a litre of boiling water, when it was about 30 mins old, I threw it in too, when it returned to the boil, I dropped the hops in. After the five, I poured it into the fermenter which was about 1/2 full of boiled, chilled (nearly frozen) rainwater, I want it to be just aroma. Topped up to ~21 litres with more boiled chilled rainwater, left it in the fridge with it cooling until 24degC, pitched. I did the yeast up in a starter, about 1/2 of a 11.5g pack of S-04 (had it on hand, maybe another of your suggestions next time),15g LDME, 250ml boiled, cooled water, was frothing up nicely at pitching. I wanted it to start slowly as there's not a lot of headspace in this slightly smaller fermenter, fingers crossed on that though with all these sugars, it measures a fearsome 1.054! In retrospect, am hoping its not underpitched though. It'll be fermenting in a fridge at ~18 deg, temps presently are pretty kind to us at the mo.
As it is possibly-/quasi- American, I went with the aroma hops, they're big on them I hear, and I wouldn't mind trying that anyway.
The old Draught tin was tasting like honey basically, not much hops evident, but its still a fairly bitter brew. I suspect someone will ping it, the barley doesn't help matters much, but I've wanted to try it for ages... Now seemed like as good a time as any! I could add some more steeped at secondary, with the loose hops still in there, it'll get the treatment for sure. We will just have to see how it goes! :icon_drunk:
Sorry, there's quite a lot of detail here, partly for my own record as I've not got my usual computer with me at the mo, its at work- I'll enter it into qbrew if/when I get near my trusty laptop at the slavepit tomorrow. :angry:
