Recipe?? Please help

[mattyc]

Hey, Love this website.
Only recently started brewing, but heve good results so far.
Have one in the fermenter now and would like anyones thoughts.
1 can Cooper's Bitter
1kg Cooper's Brewing sugar
500g Dextrose
250g Light dry Malt.
Would love to know if anyone has done anything like this.
Just experimenting at the moment.

[Shaun]

It will have a high alcohol content and be sweet and less bitter due to the 1.75 kg of fermentables and no extra hops. I would uses 250 g less dextrose and add some bittering hops if you wanted it to be a bitter.

It will taste alright just not like a bitter.

[Guest]

Thanks Shaun,
if using the same fermentables, should I maybe use
a lager or ale can.
The high alc content is alright, I just want to be able to drink it

[Shaun]

The can you use will depend on what you want to brew. It you want to brew a bitter the bitter kit you used is fine, what you want to do when adding malts though is balance the malty sweetness they will give you with the bitterness you want.

So if you want to brew a bitter beer and improve it using malts in place of dextrose to balances this out and keep the beer bitter you add some extra hops. This applies to all styles of beers.

However some of us like malty sweet beers and some of us are hop heads and like hoppy bitter beers. If you like malty sweet beers add more malt to the kit and fewer hops, if you are a hop head add more hops and less malt.

Using your brew as an example;

1 can Cooper's Bitter
1kg Cooper's Brewing sugar
500g Dextrose
250g Light dry Malt.

This will be a malty sweet beer; it will have a nice body and mouth feel good head and be low on bitterness. Very drinkable.

If you wanted to increase the bitterness of this beer you could add 15 g of Pride of Ringwood hops boiled in the water with you fermentables for 15 - 30 minutes.

So what tin you use and what you add to it depends on what you like using malts and hops is a balancing act, to find what you like experiment and have fun with them. I like malty sweet beers so think your brew will be fine.

Hops can also be used for aroma and flavour as well as bittering if you do a search here you will find lots of info on hops.

[Guest]

Thanks,
Will post how it tirns out.

[Balls]

Hi Mattyc, This is my regular brew and and I keep it fairly simple. Here goes, 1xCoopers Lager
1kg Dext.
250gmLDM
1x25gm pkt Saaz Hops
1xSaflager S23 yeast
Boil 1.5ltrs water and add fermentables, boil for 20mins. Add hops and boil for further 15mins. Add can of Lager at flame out and mix well. Add to fermentor and add cool water to 21ltrs. Add yeast when temp is down to 17c and wait for about 2weeks keeping it around 14c. Good brew this one (I think so). Cheers

[Tyberious Funk]

I don't think it needs extra hops. I agree with the others that with the volume of extra fermentables being added, it wont necessarily be a true bitter, but it should still turn out quite nice.

Some saaz boiled for 5-10 minutes would add some aroma without too much additional bitterness, which, IMHO would be delightful.

[mattyc]

Hey everyone,
just tried one of these.
Pretty good. Not oo sweet, not to bitter, really good.
Thanks for your help.
Matt