Extra Strong Vintage Ale (of sorts!)

[Brew_Pharm]

Hi guys, I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on my recipe and give me an ideas on a final gravity for this bigger-than-anticipated brew. It was a recipe I have seen on both this site and the Coopers forum and decided to give it a crack with a few tweaks after tasting this years Vintage.

Recipe was:
-Coopers Real Ale can
-Coopers Pale Ale can
-1kg of brew enhancer 1 (busted pack in supermarket, don't judge me too much!)
-200g dextrose
-250g medium crystal steeped at 66 degrees for 45 minutes
-Coopers yeastcake from previous brew (commercial ale yeast not can shite)

Steeped the grain, added sugars to the wort and boiled up 15g each of Amarillo and Nelson Sauvin for 20 minutes, added cans at flameout, chilled and topped up on fresh yeastcake of previous brew.

The original gravity was 1080, just wondering if this is way out of the ballpark for this amount of fermentables and I should expect a brew of around 7.5% which I was going for. I know I'll have to download some brewing software as I'm stepping up my brewing with more grains and hops but can anyone give me an idea of a final gravity? Any help is greatly appreciated

Cheers, Ben

[Sonny]

PA kit + Real Ale, 500g LDME, both yeasts OG1066 FG 1012, t'was yummo and a damn good clone. Will be stocking these ready to go for every winter. (Coopers own Old recipe is a good one as well).
I want a tad more sweetness, hoping not to overdo it, and I am going to do something like this next;
200g Crystal, 500g LDME, and some Saaz hops at 5min + PA kit + Real Ale, with both yeasts once ambient temp in Sydneytown reaches 18+C

[emnpaul]

G'day Ben,

I ran your recipe through Brewmate. To get a starting gravity of 1080 I would estimate your volume at 18 Litres. With the ingredients you posted (I think the Coopers BE1 is a 75/25% mix of Dex/Maltodextrine) you should get a final gravity around 1015 and a ABV about 8.6%, not including bottle priming. There are a few variables that can have an impact but these figures should get you ballpark.

I have only recently moved from kit and extract brews to AG/BIAB myself and can reccomend Brewmate as a very helpfull program. Not too complicated either! Beersmith is another highly rated program and I can't rule out shifting to it in future, but Brewmate should at least give some good service if you want to go down that road.

Funny story. I made the Coopers Vintage Ale recipe myself, using 30g Nelson Sauvin + 15g Willamette this time last year. Then upon tasting a sample I figured out I hate NS! It has been in the bottle for 14 months and I still hate it!

Cheers
Paul

[Sonny]

You hate it?
Don't tip it Paul. It'll be a nice gift.

[emnpaul]

You hate it?
Don't tip it Paul. It'll be a nice gift.

Hate may be too strong a word but to put it into perspective if I had the choice of a ESVA or Best Extra Stout toucan (which I do) I'd choose the Stout any day of the week.

Quite happy to swap it if there are any takers in the Northern central Coast/ South lake Macquarie area.

I should add that it's all just personal taste. If you like Fat Yak you'll love this beer.