Coopers Original Stout Review

[Ben-Harrison]

My advice would be not to just use forms of sugar to boost the alcohol - get some malt extract, 500g would be good, and add up to 500g of sugars. If you want more strength, use a kg of extract.

I think 250g of treacle is plenty, with 250g dextrose. It will cost a bit more to use extract (maybe £4 per 500g instead of £1 for dextrose), but it will be worth it. You can buy a kg of extract for £5 or £6 in home brew shops.

Hi again Clibit

If I cut the amount of water by half am I right in thinking that this will increase the ABV if? so 15l instead of 23 I know not exactly half).

I have used spray malt/brew kit enhancers before but not malt extract or is it the same thing? unfortunately I don't have a brew shop close to hand

So I have ordered Munton's 500g Extra Dark DME, Will use 250g od Dextrose and 250g of Treacle at a 15L brew. Will this achieve a high ABV of about 6% plus? also will the standard coopers yeast be enough to do this? again sorry for all the newbie questions.

Thanks
Ben

 

[clibit]

Spray malt is dried malt extract, same thing. Brew enhancer is half dried extract and half dextrose (sugar).

If you use 500g dme, 250g dextrose and 250g treacle it will give you about 6.2% if you brew to 15Litres.

It will be more intensely flavoured though than if you brewed to 23 litres. Which might suit you. Using dark dme adds to the roastiness too, you could use light dme instead. Or less treacle and more dextrose. maybe 125g treacle and 375g dextrose. Another option is to add another 500g of dme and brew to 20 litres, which would make it about 5.6%. Or 18 litres, making it 6.2%

Hope that makes sense.

The Coopers yeast should handle it ok.

 

[DoctorMick]

Treacle with this kit seems to be a Marmite thing and a whole tin in just 15 litres might be a bit much unless you're sure you'll like the result.

I agree, I put 3/4 a tin in a 20l brew and the treacle taste is overpowering.

 

[Ben-Harrison]

Spray malt is dried malt extract, same thing. Brew enhancer is half dried extract and half dextrose (sugar).

If you use 500g dme, 250g dextrose and 250g treacle it will give you about 6.2% if you brew to 15Litres.

It will be more intensely flavoured though than if you brewed to 23 litres. Which might suit you. Using dark dme adds to the roastiness too, you could use light dme instead. Or less treacle and more dextrose. maybe 125g treacle and 375g dextrose. Another option is to add another 500g of dme and brew to 20 litres, which would make it about 5.6%. Or 18 litres, making it 6.2%

Hope that makes sense.

The Coopers yeast should handle it ok.

Hi Clibit

Do you have any other ideas I could go for on this Cooper stout kit? I have in my grubby little mitts an 500g Muntons Extra dark DME & 1K of brewing sugar. And I still want to brew to about 15l as I have 22 spare bottles and don't want to spend anymore money on this except for maple syrup, treacle.

I have bought a different yeast to what comes with the kit, I bought 11g safale S-04 yeast to use instead.

I like all stouts and porters and I like them very strong - I really appreciated your help and experience.

Thanks
Ben

 

[clibit]

Hi Clibit

Do you have any other ideas I could go for on this Cooper stout kit? I have in my grubby little mitts an 500g Muntons Extra dark DME & 1K of brewing sugar. And I still want to brew to about 15l as I have 22 spare bottles and don't want to spend anymore money on this except for maple syrup, treacle.

I have bought a different yeast to what comes with the kit, I bought 11g safale S-04 yeast to use instead.Ben

Hi Ben. I'm a huge advocate of adding grains to kits, either by steeping grains that don't need mashing, or by doing a mini mash. Both are easy, and really make a big difference, it just takes 2.5 to three hours to make a mini mash beer instead of 30 mins. But I'll stick to sugar and malt extract now, the Coopers stout gets great reviews everywhere for making a great stout with minimal effort. You can think about grains in the future.

I think brewing kits to 15 litres is not the best idea, unless they are very pale kits which are not too bitter to be concentrated, as brewing short increases the bitterness. With a stout kit, you are concentrating the roastiness by brewing short, and dropping from 23 to 15 litres will make a big difference. I would brew around 19 - 21 litres myself. Just collect empty brown beer bottles while it's fermenting. I have raided bottle bins in my back alley. Nearly said back passage there!

Your ingredients will make a great stout. If you make 20 litres with the kit can, the DME and 1kg brewing sugar your ABV will be about 5.9%.

I'd be inclined to use 750g of sugar, which would drop the ABV to about 5.3%, but improve the body of the beer.

But take your pick. And don't worry.

Yeast wise, I actually think Coopers kits are popular partly because they use decent yeasts. S04 makes a good stout too, but you could save the S04 for a kit that uses a worse yeast, check the date and store it in the fridge. One of the main reasons for kits improving in recent years is the availability of better dried yeasts. The kits that get good reviews are generally ones that use good yeasts for that beer style. If a kit has a decent yeast, and added hops, it can make a good beer. Stouts don't really need more hops though, unless you like the American style hoppy stouts.

 

[Ben-Harrison]

Clibit

So I have just checked on the bottle situation and I re counted the bottles I have been collecting over the last couple of months and I have 40 for the Bulldog IPA and also 40 now for the Stout so it looks like I'm doing a full U-turn and will be brewing to the full 23 litres.

So I have 1k of dextrose, 500g of extra dark DME.

You mentioned grains, I have seen others mention this would chocolate Malt Crushed work? - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Chocolate...pt=UK_Home_Garden_Food_SM&hash=item2c926f5f92

If so how much would I need for 23L and is it easy to add to the recipe?

I'm a head wreck I know!

 

[Brewed_Force]

I brewed this kit with 500g dark muscovado sugar and 500g dark DME (plus 500g lactose).
The end result is a very dark stout, the molasses taste from the muscovado sugar is quite pronounced.
I personally couldn't drink more than two bottles, it's got too much going on to be a session beer.
Head retention is poor. I used PET bottles and although at bottling time I thought I screwed the caps on really tight, when I come to open them they twist off very easily. The beer is carbonated but I wonder if the relative looseness of the caps has had an effect on the head retention?

 

[clibit]

Choc malt has a strong roast flavour and is used sparingly. Just steep around 150g, remove grains, boil liquid and add to FV with other ingredients. If you want 23litres at 6% you will need more DME ideally, otherwise sugar.

 

[MyQul]

Choc malt has a strong roast flavour and is used sparingly when adding to a beer/kit containing other roasted grains. Just steep around 150g, remove grains, boil liquid and add to FV with other ingredients. If you want 23litres at 6% you will need more DME ideally, otherwise sugar.

I would add the above amendment to that as I recently made a stout where the only roasted grain was choccy. The receipe called for 535g/ 9.27% and was georgeous.

 

[Geithals]

I tried this kit about 2 months ago and I really did not like it. Maybe I am just too fussy about my stouts. My favourite stout is a creamy Guinness draught, optimally served at proper temp in an Irish pub, after that it would be a pint bottle of (Dublin) Guinness, after that I love various (most every) bottled stout from the Baltic region. I struggled to drink this stuff, the background taste was just too much, a fake stout flavour enhanced by a yucky flavoured molasses. I have no experience with brewing stouts, so I have no comment on what others have tried to do to make this kit work for them.

 

[rodabod]

I'm thinking of brewing this short to around half volume, and then dry-hopping in an attempt to get a strong, bitter US-style imperial stout. Does anyone think this is a bad idea?

I see this guy brewed it to half volume:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB3GLDMxxtw[/ame]

 

[Slid]

I tried this kit about 2 months ago and I really did not like it. Maybe I am just too fussy about my stouts. My favourite stout is a creamy Guinness draught, optimally served at proper temp in an Irish pub, after that it would be a pint bottle of (Dublin) Guinness, after that I love various (most every) bottled stout from the Baltic region. I struggled to drink this stuff, the background taste was just too much, a fake stout flavour enhanced by a yucky flavoured molasses. I have no experience with brewing stouts, so I have no comment on what others have tried to do to make this kit work for them.

This an interesting post, in the sense that it (the kit) is generally well thought of. Steeping some roast barley and maybe dark grains like chocolate could be the way to go.

 

[Geithals]

This an interesting post, in the sense that it (the kit) is generally well thought of. Steeping some roast barley and maybe dark grains like chocolate could be the way to go.

I tried 3 different stout brews, 2 stout kits, Coopers Orig and Coopers Irish along with a Festival porter kit.
Festival is already a 2 can kit with some dry hops, and I purchased a dark LME for use with both the Coopers kit, about 800gr of LME with about 600gr fructose into each of the Coopers
My tolerance level is generally very flexible for beers lagers and ciders, but all 3 of these stout/porters were hard to drink.
Probably just a personal taste issue, I am just very fussy about stouts. I like dry irish stouts and dry German swartz beers. The roasted barley taste, I like in the background and I like it as natural as possible.

 

[Slid]

Coopers original Stout kit, plus a Wilko Velvet, 1kg table sugar and an addition:

150g Chocolate grains, 150g Roast Barley, steeped for 30 mins and then boiled with the last of the Junga hops from the bargain bin of our good friend, the Malt Miller.

Used a washed yeast, as I have now more or less given up all hope on the Muntons yeast (Wilko kits, Wherry etc) and now use the ones provided with the Coopers kits (or others, like the Belle Saison) unless unavoidable.

24 hours in, it all looks good.

I like to bottle the stout in smaller bottles (500ml) as they are a great addition to other brews, and to cheap cider, as well as being a good drink on their own.

 

[rodabod]

Started mine three days ago. One can of Coopers Stout, no sugar, and brewed it short to 12 litres total.

Planning to dry-hop with 50g of Simcoe.

Fermenting vessel is sitting in a bath at 22 C.

 

[jackiechan]

Bottled our first attempt at this last night and i think it's by far the best kit we've done so far.

We brewed it slightly short to 20 litres based on advice above and used 500g extra dark DME and 500g brewing sugar along with a tin 1lb tin of black treacle. SG was 1.050.

As mentioned above the fermentation went off with a bang and was very vigorous for the first few days before settling down. ended up being in the fermenter for about three weeks which was longer than planned but didn't seem to affect the results. The beer was lovely to drink straight out of the fermenter and the sweetness from the treacle had mellowed nicely to a liquorice aftertaste. The DME seems to have given it a really good body - helped by brewing slightly short.

FG was 1.010 giving a ABV of about 5.2% which is around what we were aiming for. As a lot pf posters have mentioned above, I think it'll be very difficult to leave this one long enough to condition, although we're going to aim for at least four weeks...

Overall, we're pretty chuffed with how this turned out especially the treacle element which ha sturned out to be subtle and not overly sweet. It'll definitely one that we make again soon!

 

[Slid]

Bottled our first attempt at this last night and i think it's by far the best kit we've done so far.

We brewed it slightly short to 20 litres based on advice above and used 500g extra dark DME and 500g brewing sugar along with a tin 1lb tin of black treacle. SG was 1.050.

As mentioned above the fermentation went off with a bang and was very vigorous for the first few days before settling down. ended up being in the fermenter for about three weeks which was longer than planned but didn't seem to affect the results. The beer was lovely to drink straight out of the fermenter and the sweetness from the treacle had mellowed nicely to a liquorice aftertaste. The DME seems to have given it a really good body - helped by brewing slightly short.

FG was 1.010 giving a ABV of about 5.2% which is around what we were aiming for. As a lot pf posters have mentioned above, I think it'll be very difficult to leave this one long enough to condition, although we're going to aim for at least four weeks...

Overall, we're pretty chuffed with how this turned out especially the treacle element which has turned out to be subtle and not overly sweet. It'll definitely be one that we make again soon!

Welcome to this Forum, jackiechan.

1lb of treacle can be overpowering for some tastes, and the stout is indeed drinkable very young.

Does improve as it matures, but as you suggest, it takes a fair stock of beer in the garage for this to happen!

 

[rodabod]

Started mine three days ago. One can of Coopers Stout, no sugar, and brewed it short to 12 litres total.

Five days in, and my original gravity of 1.050 is down to 1.014. Shouldn't be much longer before I transfer to secondary fermenter.

 

[jackiechan]

Welcome to this Forum, jackiechan.

1lb of treacle can be overpowering for some tastes, and the stout is indeed drinkable very young.

Does improve as it matures, but as you suggest, it takes a fair stock of beer in the garage for this to happen!

I have to admit that i was a bit concerned after tasting halfway through fermentation that the treacle would be overpowering, but the sweetness really mellowed over the last few days of fermentation - perhaps the extra time in the FV helped in this.

We've made a pact not to touch the bottles for at least four weeks so hopefully we'll stay strong!

 

[Ben-Harrison]

I have just put this on last week - in the FV as follows

Coopers original stout + Coopers yeast
500g Extra dark DME
350g Golden Syrup
220g of Dextrose sugar
3 shots of extra crème espresso
and topped up to 15litres in the fv

Starting SG reading was 1064(25/02/2015), should be a nice little experiment

So took a sg reading last night (03/03/2015) as the stout has been in the FV for 6 days and the SG reading is now sat at 1014 from original SG of 1064.

Smells great but didn't taste test it as put trial jar contents back in as I short brewed it to 15L so want make sure I get as many bottles out of this as I can.

So took a sg reading last night as the stout has been in the FV for 6 days and the SG reading is now sat at 1014 from original SG of 1064 so its about 6.55% at mo

Smells great but didn't taste test it as put trial jar contents back in as I short brewed it to 15L so want make sure I get as many bottles out of this as I can.

Canny wait man !