If there was an easy IPA kit out there, we'd all be buying it!!
Any pale ale kit will do, combined with 2kg of malt extract that's been boiled in 8L with about 40g of Goldings (or Centennial, or Challenger or Target etc etc) pellet hops for about an hour and ferment the lot at about 20C with S-04 yeast and you'll be off to a good start. Fill the fermenter until you've reached 1.055 or more and you'll be in the right zone for this lovely beer.
My all grain IPA recipe "Trough Lolly's Pith Helmet IPA" is right here...
Oh, and if you want to get a good feel for this style, get thee to the bottlo and pickup some White Shield.
This is what the Coopes kit uses, what would ingredients would you substitute if any, would any additional hops be neede ?
Early records of “Cooper and Sons†producing India Pale Ale can be found in the South Australian Advertiser, dated February 1868. Thomas Coopers IPA (India Pale Ale) produces a beer with all the hallmarks of a genuine IPA from the “mother landâ€. A strong ale with robust malt characters and very high hopping levels. Intended to be mixed with 500g Coopers Light Dry Malt and 300g Coopers Dextrose to 23 litres.
This is the kit version of my Imperial IPA. If you want to tone it down to an IPA leave out 1 of the coopers lager tins (or drop the LDME and the 20 min hop additions)
IIPA
2 x tins Coopers Lager
1.5kg LDME
Hops
20 min - 15g each of Fuggles, EKG and Styrian Goldings
10 min - 15g each of Fuggles, EKG and Styrian Goldings
0 min - 25g each of Fuggles, EKG and Styrian Goldings
Dry hop - 20g each of EKG and Styrian Goldings
Yeast - US05 or S-04 or nottingham (for the liquid yeast users stick with TL recommendation of Wyeast 1028 - london ale)
Top up to 20L for OG 1.078, IBU ~ 70, ABV ~7.5% (these numbers are my best guess as its hard to work out utilisation with such a small boil volume and so many hops - the bigger the boil the more accurate the guesstimate you can make using beersmith).
I'm going to pick up the Thomas Coopers IPA kit and add 1kg LDME and some Safale yeast and probably 15-20gms of (Fuggles or Goldings not sure never used these before are they correct for this type of brew) hops and make it upto about 21ltrs in total, anyone got any thoughts on this recipe ?
I made one of these earlier this year, very simple with 500gm LDME and 300gm Dex, ( Coopers instructions for a mid strength ). The result was a very watery beer, with no head and not as hoppy, or bitter as i wanted. So yeah, your recipe looks like an improvement for sure.
I'd be tempted to use the kit yeast, apparently its Safbrew, and up the malt a bit more. Even steep some grain to help with the head retention.
The suggested instructions for the Coopers IPA kit are laughable. IPA's should be strong in alcohol and bitterness, at 23L you'll get neither. If you wanted to keep it real simple, use their recipe but with a final volume of 15-18L, depending on your preference for bitterness.
I did this one about five months ago. It's quite strong and fairly dark, but quite tasty:
Coopers Real Ale
1kg LDME
1kg DDME
150g Crystal steeped
25g Goldings @ 15 min
25g Goldings @ 5 min
25g Goldings dry hopped
S-04
Made to 23l.
OG 1060 FG 1018 ABV 6.1%
If you want something similar, but a little lighter I reckon the following would be pretty good, and would most likely be fairly close to the James Squire IPA...
Coopers Real Ale
1.5kg LDME
150g Crystal steeped
20g Goldings @ 15 min
20g Goldings @ 5 min
20g Goldings dry hopped
S-04
Make to 23l.
slayer71 wrote:I'm going to pick up the Thomas Coopers IPA kit and add 1kg LDME and some Safale yeast and probably 15-20gms of (Fuggles or Goldings not sure never used these before are they correct for this type of brew) hops and make it upto about 21ltrs in total, anyone got any thoughts on this recipe ?
I just bottled an IPA using Coopers APA as the base and added 35g Galaxy hops - 15g boiled for 10' and 20g in the secondary for 10 days. It was hard not to drink it while bottling. Very, very hoppy, spicy and citrusy.
Fuggles are generally more for dark ales or stouts and Goldings have lower AA ratings so you'd have to use more. Of course, it's all up to what you like. The Galaxy I used was 15.5%.