Coopers Best Extra Stout

[rwh]

Hi Everyone,

Here's my latest recipe formulation, for my brewing mates. They like to keep their brews all-extract for ease of brewing. Let me know what y'all think.

Coopers Best Extra Stout

• 1 coopers stout tin
• 1 kg Dark Dry Malt Extract
• 1 kg Light Dry Malt Extract
• 200g Dry Wheat Malt
• 25g Goldings @ 20 minutes

23L. OG: 1.064, FG: 1.019, 6.6% alc/vol
IBU: 43 from kit, 13 from Goldings, total: 56.

Method:
Boil the LDME with 3L water. Add hops. Boil for 20 mins. Add everything else to fermenter, then add hot stuff, stir, and then add cold to 23L, pitch yeast.

[gregb]

Nice.

Coopers tin yeast?

Cheers,
Greg

[rwh]

Yep, a Coopers tin yeast, or a yeast recultured from bottle dregs. According to Oliver, Coopers use the same yeast for the Pale Ale, Sparkling Ale, Dark Ale, Best Extra Stout and Old Stout. So I'd culture it up from a Pale.

On my formulation, I based it on the info here:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/i ... 20Ale&st=0

Some more 'reverse-engineering' research:

That whiteboard picture Sean referred to a while back is very interesting indeed. Not only does it give grain quantities for a lot of the Coopers beers, it also gives the ingredients for their extracts and kits. Here's the chart (dated 20.11.2000) (apologies for the dodgy formatting - figures are for pale, crystal, wheat and black malt, eg 4000.500.400.0 means 4000 of pale, 500 of crystal, 400 of wheat and no black):

EXTRACT BREWS

Pale Crystal Wheat Black
Malt N/O 6400.0.0.0
Lager 6400.0.0.0
Pilsener 5400.0.0.0
Draught 6400.100.0.0
Stout 5200.0.440*.880
Dark malt 5600.0.0.800
Ale 6000.240.160.40
Bitter 5000.400.320.120
Classic 5000.260.320.240
IPA 5700.280.320.40
Nut Brown 5000.280.320.240
Crystal 3200.3200.0.0
Amber 6300.240.0.60
Extra light 2900 BARLEY 4000
Light amber 6100.260.0.0

* This figure appears to have been erased, but is still faintly visible.

"LAGER CELLAR BREWS"

Pale Crystal Wheat Black
Birell 5500.160.0.0
DB 5100.80.0.0
Export 6200.240.0.0
Pale Ale 4600.40.200
Premium 5500.Medium 60.280.0
Dark Ale 4650.0.200.200
Ale 5900.40.240.0
Stout 5000.0.440.600
Vintage 6200.Medium 60.350.0

Here's how I did it:

From above, the Best Extra Stout is: 82% pale malt, 8% wheat malt and 10% black malt.

The stout tin is 80% pale malt, 7% wheat malt, and 13% black malt.

Assuming that the tin, when completely dried, would be 80% of its initial weight of 1.7kg, that would make it 1360g. Its weights of dried components are therefore:

pale.crystal.wheat.black
1040g.0g.91g.169g

Now, we want 3350g in total to produce the 6.3% ABV of the Extra. So, in addition to what's provided by the tin, we need:

2750g pale - 1040 = 1710
268g wheat - 91 = 177
335g black - 169 = 166

Now, assuming that DDME is LDME plus some other stuff to make it dark, I can replace the 1710g of pale malt plus 166g of black malt with 1kg DDME and 1kg LDME. Add 200g of wheat malt, and our malt schedule is done. Add a bit of Goldings to bring the IBU up, and that's it!

Hope someone out there enjoyed that!

[gregb]

As to Coopers using the same yeast for all thier ales, I recall seeing a post from a fellow at the brewery itself on the Coopers Club Forum confirming this. His suggestion was to culture from the Pale, because the lower alc % is kinder to the yeast etc..

Cheers,
Greg

[Cortez The Killer]

That's brilliant

rwh can i borrow your brain when i'm formulating recipes?

[Cortez The Killer]

The stout tin is 80% pale malt, 7% wheat malt, and 13% black malt.

rwh do you have the composition of other tins?

that'd be a sweet reference guide for playing with recipes to get what you want.

Cheers

[gregb]

Composition of the tins should be stored as a sticky. IMHO, of course.

Cheers,
Greg

[GrahamB]

Hi.

Did anyone actually make this "reverse engineered recipe" and if they did, how was it?

[Bizier]

Good idea GrahamB,
I might throw something along these lines down to age for when the cold bites.

I would also like to hear the feedback.

[Lachy]

Did anyone actually make this "reverse engineered recipe" and if they did, how was it?

Yep, I followed RWH's recipe based on the Coopers Stout can. Whilst I haven't tried the result alongside the real deal, I can say it is truly an excellent stout, and quite possibly my favourite recipe that I have picked up from these forums.

[mikey]

I just wanted to say this is a great beer! I made one early November with the idea of saving it until winter. Couldn't help myself and cracked one 3 weeks after bottling. It was so good - creamy, malty, smooth and thick - it didn't last past Christmas.

Needless to say others have been made since.

[alingsparkle]

I have made two stouts based of that recipe and both were great and I will definitly be making it again.

For the first batch I used US05 yeast and it came out a touch too bitter (25g EKG 5.8% 20 mins) but got much better with age. At 1 year it is fantastic.

For the second batch I used a whole yeast cake of recultured CPA yeast from a previous brew. I also reduced the hops a bit (fuggles 4.5% 10g 20mins, 5g 5 mins) and it is probably a touch too sweet.

Next batch will be CPA or safale yeast and 20g fuggles 20 mins.

[Kevnlis]

Composition of the tins should be stored as a sticky. IMHO, of course.

Cheers,
Greg

I quite agree greg. Perhaps you could make one in the recipes section for everyone to easily reference?

[smarty]

Nice one, It really impressed me. Will look forward to use it in big scale.

[alingsparkle]

I would like to build on my success with this recipe and try an all extract version (no tin of coopers stout). I am considering the following recipe but would like some help, particulary with the specialty malt /grain side of it.

1.7kg Dark Liquid Malt Extract
1 kg Dark Dry Malt Extract
1 kg Light Dry Malt Extract
200g Dry Wheat Malt Extract
* 200g roasted malt (steeped)
21g POR (8.6%) @ 60mins
25g Fuggles (4.8%) @ 60 mins
25g Fuggles (4.8%) @ 20 mins
Recultered Coopers Pale Ale yeast

Apparently Coopers use POR for all their bittering but I thought I would use some fuggles at 60 mins as well as the POR.

I am concerned the malt side of it may be bland though. I do not know what, if any specialty malts/grains may be used in the tin of Coopers Stout. I bought a bag of 'Roasted malt' but am not sure how much to use. Do I need to buy some other specialty grains -I have some crystal at home??

Any sugggestion welcome.
Cheers

[drsmurto]

I dont have beersmith with me at work but....

My 2 c

If you are going to the effort of ditching the tins i would suggest using only the pale liquid extract and getting all the colour and flavour from the spec malts.

You can easily go more than 200g of roasted barley in a stout. Throw some choc and dark crystal malt in there for added complexity.

Coopers probably do use only POR in their stout but dont let that stop you. Fuggles works very well in dark beers.

If i remember i will run an all extract recipe thru beersmith tonight. What is your batch and boil size?

Cheers
DrSmurto

p.s. add your location your your profile so we can point you in the right direction when it comes to LHBS and local meetings etc

[alingsparkle]

Thanks for the feedback

My batch size will be 23 L and I will do a boil of about 4 L with an SG of approximately the planned OG.

I have already bought the dark liquid malt so will use it for this brew but the the suggestion to start wilth pale malt is taken onboard for nextime

Cheers.

[mikey]

I really love this beer but unfortunately the bathroom scales have become a little more worn out after a few more months drinking it.

I am considering cutting back on the malt to .5kg of dark and light. Apart form loweirng the alcohol and calory content, what effect will this have on it as beer? Will it turn out more like an old rather than a stout?