Coopers Euro Lager-what hop

[rotten]

Gday guys.
I have only made 1 lager before and that was purely a K&K brew, 10 weeks old now and still green. Looking to do a true cold temp lager.
I have heaps of Tettnager, Saaz and a bit of Amarillo left. Looking to Tettnager at the moment, unsure how much to use though. Could i mix Tettnager and Saaz.
Fermentables I have to use are plenty of DLME and Dex. Can Coopers European Lager as base. I can boil up to 3.5 ltrs MAX.
Any suggestion appreciated.
Cheers.

[warra48]

Tettnanger and Saaz will go well together. Both are noble hops ideally suited to Euro style lagers.
Leave out the Amarillo. It's an American style hop, more suited to American Pale Ales.

[Lachy]

Try this....

Coopers European Lager
1kg LDME
15g Saaz @10 min
10g Saaz @ 5 min
S-189 (incl. w/ kit)

Made to 23l

Seems to work pretty well, however true to form it does take a minimum of three months in the bottle for the flavours to balance and any residual sulfuriness to disappear. It's at its peak 5-6 months after bottling, IMHO.

I've also done the same brew as above, substituting Tettnanger for the Saaz. My opinion is that Tettnanger works better in wheat beers than in lagers, although I'm led to believe that it is the hop used in Heineken.

If you with to try an American hop in your lager, I can recommend Cascade, used in the same schedule as above. Makes for a very refreshing lager that marries well with seafood.

[rotten]

Try this....

Coopers European Lager
1kg LDME
15g Saaz @10 min
10g Saaz @ 5 min
S-189 (incl. w/ kit)

Made to 23.

Gdat guys, is that enough hops and a large enough boil? What if i added Tettnager for bittering on a 60 min boil? Do i need to balance the 1kg LDME more?
Lots of questions i know, i downloaded a trial of beersmith last night and are still trying to work it out. Where is the 'add after boil" box?
Cheers

[rotten]

Alright, i don't have the patience for beersmith so here is recipe so far.

1.7kg can Coopers European Lager
1 kg LDME
20gm Tettnager 60min AA% 4.2 bittering
15gm Saaz 15 min AA% 3.6 aroma
15gm Saaz flameout aroma

I think the LDME would need some balancing which is reason for Tettnager.
Any comments appreciated
Cheers

[Chrisp]

rotten how are you. Stick with beer smith. Dont have a box for add after boil, just enter it as 0min's as it adds nothing to your IBU. Remember to add the IBU of the can,(which for the Euro lager is 18.5). I usually do this with a deffalt hop so it dosnt confuse in the future. Add the the tin as it's corisponding weight as LME or for darker tins DME. Have you thought of adding some small grain additions, carapills could possibly go well.

[Chrisp]

Just ran the recipe through beersmith.For 23L O.G 1044, FG 1011. IBU 32.7. colour 5.9 SRM.
BU GU 0.74. came in as a German Pils( colour a little high). When you are formulating a recipe go to settings and change to extract, also change the grain setting to weight. Have fun.

[rotten]

Gday Chrisp. I can get IBU to 23, suggested IBU is 25 to 40. When i add the default hop for tin IBU if I put 0 mins in boil the IBU drops to 1.6, at 60 mins it goes to 23 IBU. What am i doing wrong. I had to add 35gm Tett @ 60 min for bittering to get that IBU.
Cheers

Edit: I think i have it right, put last 4 recipes in and they come out roughly where they should be. Colour is usually down a bit though.

[Chrisp]

Rotten, not sure what your asking exactly. I'll give it a go though. I have the IBU for euro Lager @ 18.5 ( Though reading the coopers tin IBUs thread this could be wrong), so i would use cascade as a deffault hops, as it has nothing to do with this recipe and has a good alpha acid %. Under grams i would put in around 25gms and start off @ around 30 mins, then adjust the mins untill you reach the desired IBU's (in this case 33 mins for 18.7 IBU). Once you figure what overall IBU you are aiming for play around with the amount of hops and boil time, to get what your after. eg if you did 30g tett at 30 min, 15g tett @ 15min, 15g saaz @ 15 min & 15g saaz @ 0 min= 35.1 IBU ( with tin IBU). You could also do tett @ 40min, 30g saaz @ 30min,15g saaz @ 10min = 37.2 IBU (with tin IBU).
Hope this helps Crisp

[rotten]

Gday Chrisp. I do understand what you are saying, just can't do it the same as you. Before I had a default hop that i gave a AA of 5%. I needed 500gm at least of that to get IBU of 21.2, which is Coopers Lager (can't find coopers eurpean lager. I changed that to cascade as you suggested, 33 min boil, and i need 500gm to get 18.2 IBU. That was with a 3 ltr boil.

What boil volume do you have?
I just changed the boil volume to 23 ltrs, same as the batch size. That meant i now only need 43gm of cascade to get IBU of 18.2, overall IBU is 39. Is that what i'm doing wrong
I hope you aren't thrustrated yet.
I really do appreciate your help

[Chrisp]

rotten i'v had a good play around with brewcraft & cant work out what is wrong. All i can think of is resetting the defaults, or downloading it again. Let us know how you go.

[rotten]

I have been trying things with beersmith for hours and looking at old posts of people with same sore head as me. Got it sussed now i think. Only brewing and tasting will tell for sure.
I added 1.7 kg malt (can) after boil
added mock hops in boil to get IBU of can
Then added actual malt, hop additions etc.
Batch size 23 ltr, boil size 3 ltr.
Colour is high although probably out anyway because i dont have precise hop additions already in can.
German Pils suggest IBU 24-40, I got IBU of 32 with bitterness ratio of .713.
Time to brew and see how we go. This is a recipe thread so here it is.

1.7 kg can Coopers European Lager
1 kg LDME
35 gm Tettnager @ 60 min
15 gm Saaz @ 15 min
15 gm Saaz @ 5 min
S-23 yeast

Thanks again, will let you know how it goes in 5-6 MONTHS.

[Chrisp]

Glade to hear you got it sorted. The recipe sounds good, i must admitt you have me thinking more about lagers than ales at the moment. I have a couple of PA's in mind, one with cascade & chinook, one with cascade & nelson sauvin (fat yak inspired), so i might have to dedicate one fermenter to ales & one to lagers.
Tried the matilda bay Bo pils recently, very tasty. Might try something simular.
I like your choice in yeast S-23 not the 34-70. I wouldnt mind finding out off the gurus what differance they find bettween the two, & what there preferance would be.

[rotten]

Gday. Had a busy night tonight. bottled an amarillo australian pale ale. Brewed another amarillo, saaz pale ale, i really like the saaz in the last one i did, it's nearly all gone. And right now doing the boil on the lager recipe i posted last night. House is very aromatic much to the discust of other house members. From what I have read here S-23 is a good low temp yeast, with high flocculation (i think i got that right) although i never had any problems with the coopers yeast they are only nutrient these days. Anyway got to go, more hops to throw in.
Cheers.

[rotten]

Finished brew now. OFG 1040, beersmith had 1045 which doesn't really matter. Pale Ale brewed tonight was down compared to beersmith as well. Colour is very dark, early days i know, it's easily the darkest brew i have had in the fermenter. SRM was higher than Beersmith range so i still have some tweeking to do. Can you go too high on colour? these aren't comp brews they just need to taste GREAT!
Cheers.

[Anna]

rotten how are you. Stick with beer smith. Dont have a box for add after boil, just enter it as 0min's as it adds nothing to your IBU. Remember to add the IBU of the can,(which for the Euro lager is 18.5). I usually do this with a deffalt hop so it dosnt confuse in the future. Add the the tin as it's corisponding weight as LME or for darker tins DME. Have you thought of adding some small grain additions, carapills could possibly go well.

Sorry guys, but there's been a revision to the formula previously used to work out IBUs for Coopers kits - see new Sticky. Euro Lager is now an IBU of 25.1.

Anna

Oh - And try Brewmate - it's so much easier than Beersmith (and FREE), and there's a new version coming which will have all the Coopers kits already keyed in to the "Fermentables" section.

[Anna]

Rotten - just for the hell of it I ran your recipe thru BrewMate with the revised IBU for Euro lager (25.1). This is what came up:

OG: 1.039
FG: 1.01
IBU: 48.6
Balance Value: 2.73
BU:GU ratio: 1.25
ABV: 3.83%
Colour: 5.0

Changes things somewhat eh? (Hope you don't mind me butting in - I'm looking for things to do at the moment - going stir-crazy!)

Anna

[Chrisp]

Rotten just been reading anna's post and realised my info on beersmith is usless, as i'v been using brewmate sorry mate (talk about bum steer). As anna said though it is a free download so have a look (easy to use). Have to let us now how the amerillo-saaz PA goes, just bottled one myself recently. Odd combo, ihave found it to tast really nice after gravity readings. dont now what flavours your getting, i found it to tast very passion fruity. My only regreat is that i didnt dry hop it, or for that matter hop it enough, seems to be fading quickly. I did find a Belgium beer that is meant to be good and uses amerillo-saaz after cant remember what it was but enter the hops into google & you should find it. They have some trial clone AG recipes for it on the northen brewer website.
Cheers crisp

Forgot to say, good work on the coopers tin IBU,s guys. Thanks for the re- calculations Anna.

[rotten]

Gday guys, i tried downloading brewmate and got some registry checker as well which i would have needed to pay for. I couldn't open brewmate and the other program was slowing down my computer so i got rid of them both. I'm not too worried about the bitterness because i think when you boi, you lose some due to evaporation. I'm actually considering dropping the overall batch size by the amount lost in boil to keep bitterness. (does that make sense to anyone?)

I know saaz isn't really recommended for pale ale chrisp but give it a go. If you try something similar to me you will need to add @60min & 40 min, i would add at flameout too next time but not too much. Don't know about you but i'm not going for a yuppie beer. Or try a good bittering hop @60 min, saaz @20 min and saaz @ flameout. I used amarillo for bittering in last nights brew. You mentioned a belgian pale ale before i think which is similar in style to this.
Cheers

[Chrisp]

this is the recipe i put down
Black rock EIPA 1.5kg
LLME 1.5kg
carapils 250g
dry wheat ME 200g
cascade 12g @ 40mins
ammarillo 7g @15mins
saaz 7g @ 15min
ammarillo 7g @ 5 min
saaz 7g @ 5 min