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I bought a Thomas Coopers Heritage Larger can last week and I'm keen to give it a go.

The can say that I am supposed to use a can of Coopers Light Malt Extract. Or if not available use a premium branded liquid malt or dry malt as an alternative. But says do not use bulk extracts. Can someone explain the difference?

The guy at the home brew shop sold me a bag of 1kg of Booster blend which says its equivant of brewcraft #15, brewceller #11 or Coopers beer enhancer 2 to go with it. Does this sound right?

Also should I be buying a liquid yeast and hops instead of the yeast supplied in the kit?

Any suggestions would be great.....

36590 wrote:The can say that I am supposed to use a can of Coopers Light Malt Extract. Or if not available use a premium branded liquid malt or dry malt as an alternative. But says do not use bulk extracts. Can someone explain the difference?

I've been a little confused about this one for a while actually, but I think what it's saying here is to use a can of some kind of branded malt extract, with the assumption that this'll be better quality than the malt extract you can buy in 1kg, 5kg, 20kg bags (i.e. in bulk) at your HBS. Can't say I'm particularly convinced by that argument.

What is for sure is that "bulk extract" (if I understand it correctly) is always going to be a million times better than sugar, or brew enhancers for that matter. The branded stuff might be slightly better than that, but it sure is a fair bit more expensive too.

36590 wrote:The guy at the home brew shop sold me a bag of 1kg of Booster blend which says its equivant of brewcraft #15, brewceller #11 or Coopers beer enhancer 2 to go with it. Does this sound right?

Coopers Brew Enhancer 2 is 500g dextrose + 250g Malt Extract + 250g maltodextrin, so no, it is not right if what you want is 100% malt extract, which is what the can is asking for. It'll probably give you an OK result, but 100% malt extract will be better.

36590 wrote:Also should I be buying a liquid yeast and hops instead of the yeast supplied in the kit?

At this stage, I wouldn't bother with liquid yeast. The Coopers yeasts are fine and are very good for starting out, especially if you can keep your temps stable and around the lower end of the scale (in this case, somewhere between 16°C and 12°C would be fine). If I was going to replace the yeast on this kit, I'd go for something in the dry saflager yeast range (say S-23 or S-189). Dry yeasts are much easier to handle and their use has less pitfalls for the new player (and they're cheaper). The only thing liquid yeasts have going for them is greater variety; they're not somehow "better" other than that variety and fidelity to the original source of the yeast.

Hops is a different matter, and using them can pep up a can nicely, and it's pretty easy to do. For the Heritage Lager can, boiling 10-15g of Hersbrucker or Saaz for 5 minutes with the malt extract would be lovely. You don't have to though, this is essentially the "icing on the cake" in terms of hop aroma. Adding a bit of specialty grain (like carapils in this case) will add a bit of grain freshness as well, if you feel up to it (again, totally optional).

Have you read the Simple things that make HB better sticky yet?

Thanks rwh,

rwh wrote:boiling 10-15g of Hersbrucker or Saaz for 5 minutes with the malt extract would be lovely

.

I should be able to buy Hersbrucker or Saaz at the HBS, Yes?

Let me get this right boil the malt and hops on the stove for five minutes before putting it in the tub. Then add the can? Stir in and add cold water. I'm going to try tank water over town water this time.

Someone has told us to soak the yeast in water before adding it to the brew so that it can arate. Does this sound correct?

36590 wrote:I should be able to buy Hersbrucker or Saaz at the HBS, Yes?

Yes.

36590 wrote:Let me get this right boil the malt and hops on the stove for five minutes before putting it in the tub. Then add the can? Stir in and add cold water. I'm going to try tank water over town water this time.

Yep. I normally recommend something like this:
1. Put the malt into a saucepan, pour in 4L boiling water from the kettle, trying to avoid clumping or sticking to the bottom.
2. Bring to the boil, then add the hops (watch out for boilover, have a glass of cold water to add if it looks like boiling over)
3. Add the hops, and boil for however long the recipe states (5 minutes in this case)
4. Turn off the heat and add the kit and stir until dissolved
5. Add 10L water to the fermenter, then pour in you concentrated wort
6. Top up to 23L
7. Sprinkle the dried yeast on top

36590 wrote:Someone has told us to soak the yeast in water before adding it to the brew so that it can arate. Does this sound correct?

Some people do it, though I wouldn't bother personally. And it's actually so the yeast can rehydrate, not aerate. Anyway, apparently rehydrating improves the viability of the yeast by making it easy for the dry yeast to take on water more easily than it would be able to in a wort with sugars present. In practice I don't find it makes a difference, in fact I once had a dried coopers yeast kick off in 10 minutes when sprinkled directly onto the surface of the wort!

Just finished bottling after three weeks in the tub. Finsihed up using Hersbrucker hops although I don't know whether I was supposed to leave the hops (tea bag thingy) in the tub for three weeks as well? I boiled the kit and hops on the stove for about 5-10minutes before adding to the tub and cold water.

I did not see the brew bubble during the process although I assume that that is because it fermented at about 12 deg's for the three weeks, but it looks and smells great.

Should I give these three to six months in plastic bottles before I drink them?

if you have that kind of patience

A month or two should be fine, but they'll continue to improve.

I threw down a batch of the ol' Heritage Lager a few months back.

Recipe went something like...

Kit
1.1kg LDME
100g carahell malt
12g cascade (6/6)
6g hallertau
500g Tasmanian Leatherwood Honey
Saflager S-23

Fermented it out over the course of four weeks at about 8 deg. I didn't leave it to condition anywhere near long enough, from memory it disappeared about a month after it finished fermenting and was put in the keg! Smelt strangely like bubblegum...Can't say it was really my kinda thing (I'm a pale ale fan), but I had bucket loads of people tell me it was off chops.

Ive got a keg of this at the moment.
I just made it with a 50/50 malt dex mix just to get an idea of the kit.

Its not bad at all, just begging to be hopped up.

About 2 months ago did this recipe
Kit
700g LDME
500g Dex
12g Tettnanger
12g PoR
Coopers LAger yeast (s189 i beleive - left over from pilsner kit), fermented at around 14-16*c

Now is not a bad drop but a bit hoppy for my liking, next time i'd probably add a little less PoR. a good kit tho

l7edwards wrote:About 2 months ago did this recipe
Kit
700g LDME
500g Dex
12g Tettnanger
12g PoR
Coopers LAger yeast (s189 i beleive - left over from pilsner kit), fermented at around 14-16*c

Now is not a bad drop but a bit hoppy for my liking, next time i'd probably add a little less PoR. a good kit tho

Probably be a lot nicer if you dropped the POR all together

PoR is a good hop- in extreme moderation. You need a very delicate hand, but you can get some beautiful nutty, earthy flavour out of it.

Chris wrote:PoR is a good hop- in extreme moderation. You need a very delicate hand, but you can get some beautiful nutty, earthy flavour out of it.

I agree. I have made some nice beers with this hop.
Its just a late addition of POR with this kit seems kind of wrong to me

I prefer the POR hop cones...the pellets seem a bit "grassy" to me. just my thoughts.

PaulSteele wrote:if you have that kind of patience

It's been just over three months now. Getting keen to give these ago but i'm holding out for Christmas, maybe.

What yeast did you end up using?

I'm not 100% what yeast comes with the Lager kit but I'd be surprised if it actually fermented at 12oc unless it was defitnely a Lager yeast?

I've made the mistake of brewing too cold with some ale yeasts and assumed they had finished fermenting only to find out later that they hadn't. No explosions thankfully but alot of wasted beer.

The fact that you did not witness the beer fermenting just set of some alarm bells.

I'd try one

Just used the yeast in the kit. hopfully it turns out okay. Might give one a go soon. The kit stated that it worked around those types of temps.