Hops to a Coopers Dark Ale kit

[Aemon]

Hey,

Im thinking on brewing a Coopers Dark Ale kit, and my plan was too use 1kg LDME with some hops I have from an earlier batch, Willamette 5%. Total batch volume 20 liters.

My question is how do i do this.

I am planning on boiling 6 liters of water (thats how much my stove is capable of) for 20 min, and add the hops at 20 and 5 min. Should I boil it with just the LDME and add the Coopers kit liquid after the boil (since this is pre hopped), or boil it with everything in?
And how much hops to i need? Was thinking 2x20g

Cheers

 

[doyley]

I wouldn't go to the trouble of boiling a large volume of water or boiling up with DME. It depends how hoppy you want it, but with Coopers Dark I generally boil about 25 g of Fuggles in about 2 pints of water for 10 minutes, leave it to cool a little and then add it when making up the volume in the FV. Reusable nylon hop boiling bags are ideal for this. If you really want hop aroma you could always add another 25 g at the end of the boil to steep. Speaking for myself, I prefer Coopers Dark not too hoppy, but each one to his own.

 

[Padalac]

hey mate, i did this to make a christmas beer a couple of months ago:
1 coopers dark ale kit
1kg amber malt extract
200g chocolate malt
20g columbus bittering
5g columbus aroma
25g fuggles aroma
christmas spices

i did a partial mash of the chocolate malt, 6l of water, strained out the malt then dissolved in the dme. so i had roughly 6l boil using only the dme and chocolate malt runnings. i boiled it for 75mins with the bittering addition and then added the aroma additions and spices at the last 5 mins and then at the last second, after turning off the heat.. i then covered this wort, stuck it out in the snow to cool and used the coopers dark ale kit as instructed - no boil, just dumped it in the FV with boiling water and aerated.. i added the hopped dme wort into this (strained it through a tea strainer), and topped up with cold water to 20l.. cooled and pitched a wyeast 1968 london ESB smackpack

it worked out really well for me, so i don't see why you couldn't do the same thing, but without the spices, and using your recipe ie ldme in place of the amber, and the hops you have in place of what i used.

however if you're not using any bittering addition there isnt so much benefit to doing the full boil. if you just want the aroma, why not just dry hop with the willamette?

 

[Aemon]

Hey,

Thanks for replies and advice.

I think ill just boil the amount of water that the kit says, add some hops for 5 min and mix in the extract just before adding to FV and topping off.

Cheers