Coopers Sparkling Ale OG ?

[drsmurto]

Hops - depends what you are trying to make. I just bottled my sparkling ale using the kit plus 1.5kg can of LME and amarillo hops for flavour/aroma. also dryhopped at rack for a week.

If you want to make the Coopers Sparkling Ale recipe you need to use Pride of Ringwood hops, again for aroma and flavour only as the kit is sufficiently bittered as already mentioned. I use the yeast from the bottles of the Coopers Pale Ale which you can buy in Tesco or Waitrose. Cant remember which one sold them. Also means you get to drink a good Aussie beer!

Cheers
DrSmurto

[sparky Paul]

I just bottled my sparkling ale using the kit plus 1.5kg can of LME and amarillo hops for flavour/aroma. also dryhopped at rack for a week.

Thanks for the tips DrS. When you say you added 1.5kg of LME, is that all the fermentables you added? How does it turn out at the lower OG, given that the kit recommends 500g DME and 300g sugar in addition?

I searched the forum yesterday for Coopers info and found your links to the excellent Aussie forums - there's a mind-boggling amount of information there about the Aussie kits, I need to do a bit of research.

[drsmurto]

Thanks for the tips DrS. When you say you added 1.5kg of LME, is that all the fermentables you added? How does it turn out at the lower OG, given that the kit recommends 500g DME and 300g sugar in addition?

I searched the forum yesterday for Coopers info and found your links to the excellent Aussie forums - there's a mind-boggling amount of information there about the Aussie kits, I need to do a bit of research.

Yep, 1.5kg LME is all i added.
According to http://www.brewcraft.com.au/wa.asp?idWe ... etails=120

OG 1.046, FG 1.012 and alc 5.2%. 23L = 40 pints.
Coopers Pale Ale is 4.5% and the Sparkling Ale is 5.8% so its somewhere in between.....

I have moved on from adding dextrose to my kits, all malt for me!

As for the sites you found, loads of good K&K advice since the kits here are very cheap and with some hops, maybe some extra grains and a bit of effort and time produce bloody good beers and unlike almost anything we can buy from commercial brewers here in Oz. All grain is obviously the top end of home brewing but a lot of people dont have the time or inclination to devote to it since by that time its more of an obsession that a hobby not that i wouldnt mind getting there someday......

I suspect you would have trouble finding the Pride of Ringwood hops used in a lot of commercial aussie beers and generally used here for bitterness and flavour (high AA hop) so just play around with what you like. I am expanding my hop repertoire almost every brew! Since leaving the UK last year, i am keen to play around with some goldings and fuggles to make some 'proper ales' and so am finding more help on this forum than my aussie ones since you lot have different tastes in beers to us. Having supped many a real ale in Durham i am looking forward to making a few....

Cheers
DrSmurto

p.s. serioulsy tho, if you can grab some coopers pale ale from the supermarket and tip off the beer and reculture the yeast you will get to taste my local beer that should show you that Fosters (aka kangaroo piss) isnt representative of our beer and you also good the exact same yeast used by Coopers. I generally use 2 x 750mL bottles.

[sparky Paul]

Thanks for that DrS, some great tips there!

One of the shops over here is selling the Sparkling Ale and Heritage Lager kits off cheap (£24 for 6 kits), so I've bought a few.

Interesting about the Pale Ale yeast, I might try that if I can find some Coopers PA. From the info on the Aussie forums, it seems that the yeast supplied with the kits is a mixture of Safale and Saflager. The link to the OG & ABV calculator is great too, although when I put the standard SA recipe in (1.5kg LME + 0.5kg DME + 0.3kg Glucose), the results are 1.061 and 6.9%!

Incidentally, have you any idea why Coopers recommend a mixture of LME and DME for this kit?

I've made a Heritage Lager before with 1.6kg of LME, I wasn't too impressed initially... I thought it was bland, heavy, and maybe a bit sweet. However, I opened a bottle the other day and its changed considerably after six weeks or so... its actually very nice now. Apart from a bit more time, it could just do with a few more aroma hops...

[sparky Paul]

I found that calculator to be inaccurate Paul

It thought it looked a bit over optimistic too!

The SG and FG don't look a mile out, but the ABV looks very suspect to me...

[Andy]

How can that calculator be anything more than an "estimator" if you enter just the weight of the malt extract in the kit One size (weight) doesn't fit all, once kit could be a 1038 session ale and another of the same weight could be a 1060 skullcrusher - or am I missing something

[sparky Paul]

I would have thought the kit contents would be considered as fermentables, the same as everything else?

Broadly speaking, I would have thought the OG would be related to the total amount of fermentables and the total volume of the wort. Wouldn't a 1060 skullcrusher have more fermentables added, or a lower wort volume?

[Andy]

Interesting...so are you saying that regardless of the combinations and types of grains involved to produce a given weight of "kit" malt extract then as long as the weight of the resultant malt extract is the same then the OG should be the same (assuming a standard amount of liquor is added to make up the same final volume).


e.g.
kit 1 has 3kg of malt extract produced from 100% pale malt.
kit 2 has 3kg of malt extract produced from 70% pale, 10% crystal, 5% chocolate and 15% wheat.

If I make up each kit to 5 gallons then they *should* have the same OG ?


in short - fermentables == weight of malt extract not malt recipe used to achieve that weight.

[sparky Paul]

I don't think they will be exactly the same, but I don't think there would be much difference?

After all, as you say, these things are only guesstimators.

[drsmurto]

24 quid for 6 kits is cheaper than we can buy them here! check the use by dates, the yeast may be on its way out. With all kits i replace the yeast altho i have used the Thomas Coopers premium yeasts as these are 'supposed' to be of a higher quality.... the mixture i dont think is the case for the premium kits but not 100% on that.

As for the calculator, all the comments etc are fair enough. Its an estimator that i and others use to get a ball park figure but you should always take your own readings and do proper calcs. Altho in fairness, gravity readings to calc ABV are in themselves, a very rough calculation that dont take into account temperature, viscosity, particles in the liquid. But thats just the (anal)ytical chemist in me coming thru.....But if you arent selling the beer you really dont need anything other than a rough guess within 0.5% anyway?!?!?

The kits are simply hopped malt extract so you can assume its 100% fermentable. I hadnt even thought about the yeast attenuation but i guess 75% is a fairly general figure. Altho if you use only sugar and not malt it assumes 100% attentuation and gives you a FG of 1.000 which i can only get to using a wine yeast or an enzyme?!?!

As for the coopers instructions, the general consensus is to ignore them and follow more detailed and accurate information. eg http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html

Thanks for that DrS, some great tips there!

One of the shops over here is selling the Sparkling Ale and Heritage Lager kits off cheap (£24 for 6 kits), so I've bought a few.

Interesting about the Pale Ale yeast, I might try that if I can find some Coopers PA. From the info on the Aussie forums, it seems that the yeast supplied with the kits is a mixture of Safale and Saflager. The link to the OG & ABV calculator is great too, although when I put the standard SA recipe in (1.5kg LME + 0.5kg DME + 0.3kg Glucose), the results are 1.061 and 6.9%!

Incidentally, have you any idea why Coopers recommend a mixture of LME and DME for this kit?

I've made a Heritage Lager before with 1.6kg of LME, I wasn't too impressed initially... I thought it was bland, heavy, and maybe a bit sweet. However, I opened a bottle the other day and its changed considerably after six weeks or so... its actually very nice now. Apart from a bit more time, it could just do with a few more aroma hops...

[sparky Paul]

24 quid for 6 kits is cheaper than we can buy them here! check the use by dates, the yeast may be on its way out. With all kits i replace the yeast altho i have used the Thomas Coopers premium yeasts as these are 'supposed' to be of a higher quality.... the mixture i dont think is the case for the premium kits but not 100% on that.

That's why they're cheap - there's only 3 months date left on them. I new I would have to budget for new yeast - still, I didn't think they were bad at £4 apiece! I read the info about the yeast being a Safale/Saflager mix in this thread...

http://www.homebrewandbeer.com/forum/vi ... .php?t=571

Thanks for the link!

Cheers!