Adapted Kit Recipes.

[Spin]

Just for information. The Coopers Pale Ale that I mentioned earlier in this thread is amazing now. Never thought it possible to come out so good from a kit. It has had about 3 weeks of conditioning at room temperature now and another 3 weeks in a cold fridge. It has hardly any chill haze and tastes superb. The recultured yeast has made such a difference. Never thought that it would do.

I am just going to order some more kits and get a little production line going as I get through it so fast!!

[verno]

Coopers mexican lager 23 litres

1 x kit
1kg of brewing sugar
250g flaked rice mashed at 65c for 45 mns
25g saaz hops boiled for 15m + 25g steeped for 15m

2 x s23 yeast, ferment for 21 days at 10-12c

Bottle with 1 x coopers carbonation drop in each bottle - leave for 8 weeks. after some miserable failures with lagers, this one hit the mark

I just made this kit up but with 500g light malt extract, 500g liquid malt extract and about 200g sugar and kit yeast. A couple of observations, it cleared very quickly (a couple of days) and yesterday after only 2 weeks I cracked a bottle. It was very good. Very similar to a honey lager or something. The only downside is a slight metallic taste but I think thats because of my liquid malt. I think I have heard others mention it.

Overall very happy with it and would definitely make again. Thanks for the recipe.

[micmacmoc]

Manx Guy!

The Burton Bridge kit was really good, quite dark. Probably my second fave out of all the kits I have made over the last year. I will definitely do it again. I bottled it, last bottles are going down tonight now that you reminded me of it!

[Manx Guy]

Has anyone tried adapting kits by not making them upto 40 pints/23litres?
I was wondering about doinga Coopers Draught using the kit and about 200g Sugar (to aid fermentation) and making to 11Litres (maybe upto 15Litres...?)

I'd be grateful for any advice from seasoned pro's....

MAny thanks in advance.

Slainte!
:8

[Chase24]

If you halve the length of the brew then you'll get a maltier and hoppier brew. By reducing the addition of sugar to 200g you'll find that the beer is stronger, probably enough to offset the extra bitterness of the hop extract.

Give it a go and see whether you like it. It won't be undrinkable...

[Manx Guy]

Cool


I'll try that and start at 11litre and take a SG reading and try to hit the right OG and see where that takes me...



I will either post on here how I get on or start a new thread (to assist other kit 'newbies')


Slainte!

[Danmet]

Just kicked off another kit - I've used a Geordie Yorkshire Bitter kit, 1kg beer kit enhancer, 75g dark chocolate malt, 75g crystal malt, and a generous helping of the unidentified hedgerow hops that I've been picking & drying. I had the malts boiling for about 40 minutes & the hops in for another 10, then steeped for a bit longer whilst I panicked & realised that I didn't have everything else (like a sieve!) ready. It smells great

[fivetide]

You are steering dangerously close to the dark side. Careful now...

[Danmet]

You are steering dangerously close to the dark side. Careful now...

hehe - transferred it to the barrel last night - it's looking/smelling good! Can't wait to try it

[Manx Guy]

Hi,

Just a quick update...

I've done a EDME Yorkshire Bitter Kit with 1kg of LME and some steeped (at 64-68C) pale malt and about 20g of fuggles (boiled for 20mins) with a further 5-10g added after turning the maltyhoppy brew off and allowing to cool-this then steeped for about 20-30 mins while I sanitised my FV and opened the kit can.

The hoppy malt was then starined into the can to rinse out any remaining malt, then cool water added to 23L

rehydrated yeast pittched at 21C
After primary is completed I will keg this into a 5gallon budget keg and allow to condition naturally for 3-4 weeks then sample
I may add some further hops to the keg if required...

I'm hoping (somewhat optimisticly) that this will turn into a sort of black sheep type beer...
lol


I'll let you know how it turns out...

Slainte!

[Manx Guy]

Just a quick update on my EDME Yorkshire Bitter Kit experiment...

5 days into fermentation and the SG is at 1014... had a taste of the sample and blimey it tastes good!

Its still very cloudy with yeast is suspension, but tastes malty with a good hop flavour and nice bitter finish!

Although its early days this is exactly what I was hoping for! It should mature nicely by mid December...


I will take another gravity reading on Sunday (~7days) and then keg on Monday Tuesday depending on what readings I get...

I dont expect this to get much lower than 1008-1010 so will keg as soon as its in that region...

I cant imagine kegging at that gravity will cause any issues, I plan to use 80g of unrefined cane sugar to prime the barrel and leave in a warm-ish place (18-20C) for 5 days before dropping it down to 12-14C for the remaining conditioning period...


Slainte!

[Manx Guy]

Hi all!

I put another adapted Kit into the FV yesterday (25/11/09), which I made up as follows:

Coopers Original Series Lager Kit
750g LDME
500g Dextrose
25g Saaz 'hop tea'

Saflager s-23 yeast 2 x 11.5g packs pitched at 18C

Its now happily fermenting away at 14C there is quite a lot of bubbling thru the air lock as I screwed the lid on tight to get a good seal...

I'll let you all know how it goes or you can follow the following thread:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=28536

Slainte!

[moobli]

i bought a cheap lager kit to have a play with
just ordered hallutau hops and saflager 23 yeast
ive got 1 kilo of dme
i was wondering about quantity of hop tea at the start and if it was worth putting dry hops in a bag and dunking it in the fv for the last three days of brewing
open to ideas /corrections

[Manx Guy]

Hi!

I think that 25g of hops in a litre or so of water... You can always adjust this in the future if you want more/less hopiness

There are several schools of thought on what temperature the water should be that you add to the hops... Boiled water is fine (it also ensures good hygeine) so is water at about 80C...

The thought being that boiling water may drive of some of the aroma and possibly add (very little) some bitterness - this is unlikey with low alpha acid lager hops... THis my understanding of the situation but I'm happy to be corrected

I use a large 2litre cafitiere for this as it strains the hops for me... a jug is fine as long as its very clean (eg. not the one SWMBO uses to make the gravy in... lol) you'll need to use a muslin bag or a (spotlessly clean & sanitised) seive to strain out the hops...

I have added a bag og hops to the FV (which I'd boiled without hops in to ensure cleanliness) then added the hops to the bag and added the bag after 4 days after pitching the yeast...

Its entirely up to you.. you may wish to just try the hop tea first to see if this acheives what you are after or you can try both... however you wont really know which method achieved the results...

Dry hopping is more commonly used by commercial breweries and experinced/AG brewers...

However alot of kit brewers find that Hop Tea improves the hop flavour/aroma in a kit...

Slainte!

[darran]

ok so if i have a coopers european lager tin ( 40 pinter) is there any thing i can do to change it a bit by adding something to it like hops or something else ps what is DME ? ta guys