Whats Your Favourite/best Kit Can

[Nick JD]

... and bitterness is adjusted where necessary with hop extract.

There you go. The sole company that doesn't isohop their kits ... well, does. There's my reference: you.

The only kit they don't isohop is their lowest IBU offering. The Mexican can is 270 IBUs - and if my anal-litical powers are correct, it's the only one that's not isohopped, because all the others are higher IBUs.

 

[manticle]

How do you know which ones do? Do ESB? Muntons?

I'm not saying isohop isn't used nor that it isn't used widely. It's just a furphy to suggest all tins do and considering how widely coopers tins are used by kit brewers, that's a fair few that may not be (note edited post with actual email from coopers suggests some, not all kits may be isohopped).

And sorry but if you're asking me for references (and I provided a reasonable one) then make an effort to back up your own assertions. How do you know they isohop all tins bar the low IBU one?

 

[Nick JD]

How do you know they isohop all tins bar the low IBU one?

You said Coopers told you they adjust their IBUs with isohop. Across the range on their website, there's only a couple that have the same IBUs.

Assuming they do as you said, and simply evaporate the same worts they produce for drinking as homebrew, then by my calculations about 3/4 of the Coopers range of kits is isohopped, perhaps more.

Unless there's a way to remove bitterness...

The other brands? I'd say its safe to assume isohops are used until otherwise known. There are not many breweries worldwide who do not use them.

We could email them all, but I fear we'd find out that cans of goop without isohops are rare. Coopers do make unhopped extracts, and they only use PoR, I'm taking that as a hint.

 

[timryan]

Game, Set and Match Nick Jd..

 

[michael_aussie]

I've been more impressed with Manticle's than NickJD's.

 

[yum beer]

have done one brew many brews ago using home brand draught, added a bit of extra dark malt and raw sugar, came out all right according to my records, but took 3 months plus aging.

 

[manticle]

You said Coopers told you they adjust their IBUs with isohop. Across the range on their website, there's only a couple that have the same IBUs.

Assuming they do as you said, and simply evaporate the same worts they produce for drinking as homebrew, then by my calculations about 3/4 of the Coopers range of kits is isohopped, perhaps more.

Unless there's a way to remove bitterness...

Sorry mate I'm not with you.

You asserted that kits (implication being all kits) are bittered with isohop rather than real hops (implication being solely bittered with no real hops in sight). The question is how do you know that?

I've then suggested to you that not all kits are necessarily bittered without real hops to which you've asked for a reference. Fair enough. I provided a fairly substantial one which suggests that Coopers (at least) use real hops in the kettle and MAY adjust SOME kits with isohop.

This means your assertion that all kits use isohop (and by implication from your wording do not use real hops) is incorrect.

Instead of answering which kits do use isohop as their sole bittering agent and how you know this, you then use my reference to somehow indicate that only one coopers kit uses no isohop. What does same ibus have to do with it?

You are not making sense. Please go through from point a to point b. I have no doubt some kits, maybe even most kits use iso as a sole bittering agent. That's not enough to assert that all do nor is it enough to assert that none use real hops. Some at least (and a very popular range at that) DO use real hops.

We could continue this argument for some time if you like. Before we do, using a reference other than me, could you please tell me which kits use isohop as their sole bittering agent and use no real hops (whether flowers, plugs or pellets) in their wort/extract production?

I'm happy to email coopers again and clear anything up but until I hear anything I won't be making claims beyond my knowledge. Not sure why you are.

 

[Mick74]

It doesn't really give specifics but this is what Paul Burge (PB2) from Coopers had to say about isohops in their kits on their website:

The wort for our beer kits is bittered in the brewhouse. However, some of our kits are touched up with a squirt of ISO and/or Aroma hop during packaging.

(Source)

 

[Nick JD]

Some cans of goop contain no isohops at all.

They are rare. As rare as your local pub's beers having no isohops in them.

One of my favourite beers is completely isohopped however, I don't believe isohops improve cans of goop more than they improve the profit margin of the breweries who make them.

Now, what other statements can I throw a blanket over? Kit beers are made from the scum at the bottom of the kettle, the malt with rat poo in it, and the hops that got mouldy in the floods.

Cheer up Manticle, that can of goop hopped with 40g of freshly dried PoR flowers will find you some day.

 

[Rod]

Rod, i have a can of Coopers bitter, and a bit of LDM. Did you use the kit yeast and at what temps?

I used kit yeast

20C

I think the Light dried malt helps a lot

 

[manticle]

Cheer up Manticle

I'm perfectly cheerful. Mashing the second brew of the day while waiting for brew one's convection currents to settle down.

Just not a fan of mistruth and half truth through sweeping assumption stated as dogmatic fact.
It is hard for you to admit when you're wrong isn't it?

 

[Nick JD]

It is hard for you to admit when you're wrong isn't it?

Not really. You edited my post to say "My point was, the stuff in SOME cans is isohop."

I still say "My point was, the stuff in MOST cans is isohop."

I'd happily put $100 down that 9 out of 10 (or more) cans are isohopped, most wholey. Even the Coopers ones (which are the only ones anyone has any faith in being hopped with actual hops).

That just ain't some, it's damn near all.

 

[philw]

Coopers Pale is one I always have about the place

 

[bum]

Coopers IPA was the only one I was ever properly happy with (and even then only with 90g of hops in the boil).

Could easily have been a problem with the brewer, of course.

 

[Nick JD]

My favourite kit is Coopers Pilsner made with S189 and nothing else up to 14L.

It's the only way I've ever been able to make a kit beer not taste like a kit beer.

 

[TmC]

My favourite kit is Coopers Pilsner made with S189 and nothing else up to 14L.

It's the only way I've ever been able to make a kit beer not taste like a kit beer.

Do you think making it to 14L improves the taste?

 

[Nick JD]

Do you think making it to 14L improves the taste?

Just think of it as a one-can toucan.

 

[TmC]

Right

 

[MHB]

Not really. You edited my post to say "My point was, the stuff in SOME cans is isohop."

I still say "My point was, the stuff in MOST cans is isohop."

I'd happily put $100 down that 9 out of 10 (or more) cans are isohopped, most wholey. Even the Coopers ones (which are the only ones anyone has any faith in being hopped with actual hops).

That just ain't some, it's damn near all.

Nick sorry but I think youre mistaken, each kit is its own wort. Coopers make five un-hoped Extracts (Wheat, Extra Pale, Pale, Amber and Dark) these are sold as Extract. The kits and the extract are made in the same brewhouse that makes Coopers beers, they get shunted to the concentrate room where they are vacuum concentrated and caned.
Im fairly sure they would bitter with hops wherever possible, if for no other reason than that IBUs from boiling hops are cheaper than from IBUs Iso extract (in a brewery). I know they add some Hop Aroma in the form of extract (it all goes during evaporation) and Im sure they monitor the bitterness very closely and adjust if necessary.
You would be mistaken to think Coopers dont care; everyone I have met or spoken to at Coopers has been very passionate about beer and brewing they didnt get to be the biggest kit maker on earth by being dodgy or selling second best kits.
MHB

Oh favourite Coopers kit would have to be the IPA, its a cracker

 

[Nick JD]

IBU's from boiling hops are cheaper than from IBU's Iso extract (in a brewery).

I thought the reason they make isohops is to get more from the hops.

Is "fairly sure" almost like "some"? Or more like "most"?

Why would I think Coopers don't care? If their range of homebrew cans was the same as their range of beer I'd think they were the best brewery in Australia. They're the best homebrew goop makers in the world. Gold medal for that.

I even buy their beer when I want to drink cloudy PoR with pear juice.