Coopers Mexican Cerveza + hops and brewing sugar ?

[gingerneil]

Morning all. Reading a few reviews, the Coopers Mexican Cerveza sounds like it works well with some citra dry hopped. I'm keen to give this a go.. I've got some bog standard brewing sugar left from the 5kg batch I panic-hoarded at the start of lock down. However, the instructions obviously recommend the Cooper enhancer. Is it worth paying the extra £5, or will it make no difference to just use the sugar I have ?

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Use a kilo of sugar

 

[terrym]

There are three sorts of Coopers Enhancers

• Brew Enhancer 1 - 60% dextrose, 40% maltodextrin
• Brew Enhancer 2 - 50% dextrose, 25% maltodextrin, 25% light dry malt
• Brew Enhancer 3 - 50% light dry malt, 30% dextrose, 20% maltodextrin

Not sure which one is recommended. The ones with maltodextrin will have more body but slightly lower ABV since maltodextrin doesn't ferment out. Anything with dry malt will obviously increase the malt flavours.
Or you can use 1 kg dextrose but you will get a dryer thinner beer since all the dextrose ferments out.
The choice is yours really. If you think your beer is worth spending an extra £5 then pick a brew enhancer. If not use the dextrose.
But as another suggestion if you don't want to thin your beer too much by using all dextrose, brew short to 18 litres use only 500g dextrose and this will concentrate the flavours but still give you a beer of about the same ABV as a using 1 kg dextrose in 23 litres.

 

[Pirate_Pete]

Brew Enhancer 2 - 50% dextrose, 25% maltodextrin, 25% light dry malt is the one they recommend.
https://www.diybeer.com/au/mexican-cerveza.html

Personally with all the lagers I don't use dextrose. The Coopers website used to say it was better to only use LDME in the Euro lager.
I've sort of used that info for all my lager type beers.
As terrym says the more dextrose, the thinner the beer.

I've always thought of the Cerveza to be a bland beer anyhow.
I've got one here to brew that I picked up cheap. I'm going to add 4.5 litres of grapefruit juice.
In fact I've just this very minute finished a glass of Cerveza grapefruit that I made last year.

 

[gingerneil]

maybe I'll stick with the MG Juicy Session IPA - thats just landed back in stock at B2B.

 

[dwhite60]

500g of brewing sugar and 500g of LDME would certainly be cheaper than their "brew enhancer" and give close to the same result.

 

[Dicko]

when I brew the coopers Mexican cerveza I use 500g of light spray malt and 700g of tate and lyle and brew to 21L. Then dry hop with 50g of Citra.

Dicko.

 

[Saan]

I brewed the Coopers Mexican Cerveza with 1kg of brewing sugar and dry hopped with 50g Amarillo. I was really surprised how good it turned out. A nice light refreshing beer which was perfect for drinking on a warm summer's day. I'll certainly be adding this to my 'must do again' list.