Using prehopped kits in place of LME in extract brewing?

[Aidan Curran]

Here in NZ kits are such Coopers Original series are cheaper than cans of plain unhopped LME. So I was wondering how cans such as the Coppers Lager would work out for extract brewing. I've read somewhere that if you boil them, you boil off the isohops flavour and aroma, it that correct? Would you then have the equivalent of an unhopped LME (with some bittering)? Are there any negative effects of boiling those kits? Or maybe even the hops can be used to advantage, reducing the amount of additional hops required. Very interested in hearing your opinions & experience on this. Thanks, Aidan.

[Richard Deeble]

It can work out quite well in my experience if you are careful when partial mashing and extract brewing. The best way to use the kits is to avoid boiling them at all, and rather use them in conjunction with either a small mini-mash (2-3 kg) or with some unhopped extract (the halycon DME that liberty sells here is very good, lightly coloured and relatively cheap. Much better than things like Muntons LME IMHO). I have read, and noticed from experience that boiling the kits can mess up the bitterness levels. I've also moved away from boiling my extract based beers for a long time as it tends to lead to excessive melanoidin formation (the beer is darker and sweeter/caramelised than it should be). Better to boil a small quantity of extract with your hops to get better isomerisation and aroma, then add the rest of the extract late. Even better if you do a small partial mash.

 

I would boil your hops for flavour/aroma with the wort from your mini mash or unhopped extract, and simply use the coopers kit like a 60 minute bitterness addition. As long as you use a kit with minimal hop aroma it will be ok. The IBU's are actually available online on the aussie homebrewers site somewhere and if you use software like Beersmith you can quite accurately predict how bitter your beer will be. Beersmith has handy option where you tick "hopped extract", enter the number of IBUS for the kit, then tick "add after boil" and you will get 

 

I've made some fairly good, and fairly cheap beers this way doing a 3 kg mini mash and a can of coopers lager. I've mainly done late hopped blondes and pale ales. The bitterness is slightly harsher than if I used conventional bittering methods but you can actually produce quite tasty beers, provided you get you treat your yeast and fermentation properly and santise of course! People rag on extract brewing a bit but it can be done well if you think about what you are doing. I actually also like Coopers extract much better than Muntons or Black Rock. In my experience it is significantly lighter in colour and I think it attenuates better than Muntons and is less sweet.

[denimglen]

There are two problems I see.  One is that you don't know the level of bittering used, or what it will be in your final beer, the second is that you don't have as control over what specialties the extract company decides to put in there.

 

That being said there are ways around it.  

 

I would imagine that Cooper's Lager would be pretty much 100% Aussie Lager malt, maybe with some carapils or a little wheat in there - so it would be pretty suitable as a base for most beers.

 

The bitterness level won't decrease with boiling, it may increase slightly if anything, but it shouldn't change too much.  Any flavour or aroma additions added by the manufacturer to the extract will be boiled off, but again, I doubt there would be many late additions to Cooper's lager.

 

There's no negatives to boiling the kits really, unless you're doing a concentrated boil, in which you should add some extract near the end of the boil to reduce caramelisation and melanoidin formation.

 

You won't need to add any bittering hops but you may need to add flavour or aroma hops depending on style.  You can also add more bittering hops if the bitterness level isn't up to scratch.

 

What I would do is get a can of Cooper's lager, and add unhopped malt extract to get to say 1050, boil 60 minutes, and ferment with a good yeast like S05.  This is now your baseline beer so you have an idea of how much malt character and bitterness you get from that extract.

 

For the next beer you know that if you want it more bitter you can use 1.5 or 2.0 cans of extract and reduce the amount of unhopped extract.  Less bitter, do the opposite, etc etc.  Then you can play with specialty grains etc.

 

Just make sure you stick with the same extract each time.

 

Worth contemplating - For a 1.050 all grain beer with just over 4kg golden promise and 0.5kg crystal malt it's about $16 in fermentables.  Using 3kg of the $8.0/kg LME from BC + 0.5kg of crystal that's $25, I'm not sure on the cost of Cooper's extract, about $17 per 1.5kg IIRC?.  You'd need to drop about $350 on a brew in a bag system to go the all grain route, saving over the long run though.

[Aidan Curran]

I will have to try out the BIAB eventually. What equipment is needed for BIAB - just a big pot (how many litres?) and a bag, or are there other requirements? Where in NZ is a good place to get the needed equipment?

[Tilt]

Check out the excellent write up Reviled put together Reviled BIAB blog for more local BIAB info.

 

[Aidan Curran]

Thanks for the link. I was wondering what the $350 outlay that denimglen mentioned is needed for?

[Andrew Dixon]

I'm guessing Denimglen was factoring in a largish brew pot and maybe a wort chiller and or grain mill, not sure.  You can certainly do it for much less than that if you want to.

 

I'm currently doing BIAB with a 13L stock pot and a bag I made from curtain fabric from Spotlight.  The bag cost about $10 all up and I already had the stockpot.  This allows me to make 12L batches.  You'd probably need to spend a bit more to get a large stockpot for full size batches.  I chill the wort by putting the pot in a sink full of cold water.

So you'd probably ideally spend something like $350 to get a full set up, but you can certainly do it much cheaper if you want to.

 

Andy

[Aidan Curran]

I have a 12L pot so might get myself a bag and have a go at a partial. Is muslin any good for a bag or is the curtain fabric better? They sell meter long cylinders of muslin at Bin Inn so it would just need one end sewn to make it into a bag.

[Andrew Dixon]

I think you really need to get the polyester voile fabric.  It costs about $8 a metre. 1 metre was enough for to make 2 bags for my size pot.  I'm guessing there is somewhere in Nelson that you can buy it.  Alternatively you could probably buy some cheap net curtains from the Warehouse or somewhere like that and cut them up, just make sure you get the really fine mesh stuff.

 

Andy

[Aidan Curran]

They have a Spotlight here in Nelson. Why is that particular material the choice for BIAB?

[Reviled]

Muslin is not ok because its not fine enough - you will end up with so much crap in your beer and it will suffer as a result!

 

The swiss voile is the material of choice because it does the job perfectly, its fine, but not too fine - Even the fruit straining bags you can buy at some home brew shops have, IMO, got more coarse over the last couple of years and are no longer suitable...

[Andrew Dixon]

As Reviled says you are after "Swiss Voile".

 

Andy

[Reviled]

"I was wondering what the $350 outlay that denimglen mentioned is needed for?"

 

This is a pretty close figure, if you are buying everything brand new and not willing to wait for a good deal to crop up.. But if you are patient, you can get on your feet for around $200 I reckon..

 

Main things you need are a big ass pot, and a burner, the material costs next to nothing, and you probably already have a fermenter - Alternatively, like Andrew has done, use whats lying around in the kitchen to make a half batch of AG for next to no set up cost :o) Thats the beauty of BIAB, its such a low cost way to get into brewing real beer - and the beer has every chance to be just as good if not better, than beer brewed in a conventional manner!