Brewers Blog

Re: IPA Brew

Good to hear. I just brewed mine two days ago and debated on how much to put in. I went with about 1/2 (500g) rather than the 300g the recipe specified. Will know soon enough....

Re: IPA Brew

You should get a really good brew if you used the dextrose and DME. You will definitely have more body in your beer.

Re: IPA Brew

I'm curious about your IPA. I brewed one and used 3LBS sugar and 3.3 LBS of hopped dark malt and
it was not drinkable. Too Much hopps. I recently brewed an AustraliaPale Ale with 3LBS dextrose and about 1 LB of hopped light malt. Bottled it Sunday 10/26. alcohol about 7.0%.

Re: IPA Brew

I'm even more curious. Did someone recommend using 3lbs of sugar and 3.3 of the hopped dark malt or did you come up with it one your own? The dark is designed for darker rich beers, not IPA's. That is why it was undrinkable The IPA is a great beer if you use the recommended fermentables. (500 grams of dry malt extract and 300g of dextrose).If you are looking to boost up the alcohol or give it more body, I would recommend using an UNhopped light malt and 500 grams of dextrose. Since the kits are already hopped, we don't recommend adding another hopped product to it. It will throw off the balance.

Re: IPA Brew

I recomend adding a 1/2 oz hop plug to the wort like Fuggles or Goldings this will add some of the nice floral and spicy hop characteristics that are removed during the evaporation process to make Wort Concentrate American IPAs usualy are heavily late hopped .MakeBeer is right though dont add hopped wort kits together unless you know their Bitterness Units .You can add a can of Coopers Lager to the IPA for example but it might end up being expensive compared to a Coopers Ingreedient Kit .

If you want to mix and match Coppers Wort Kits togther Coopers Tech Specs are slightly confusing for the Homebrewer because they specify the concentrates International Bitterness Units (IBU) and not the Finished Beers IBUs.They also list the EBC which relates to color .

Lager 90 EBC 390 IBU
Draught 130 EBC 420 IBU
Real Ale 230 EBC 560 IBU
Bitter 420 EBC 620 IBU
Dark Ale 550 EBC 590 IBU
Stout 1800 EBC 710 IBU
Canadian Blonde 70 EBC 420 IBU
Bavarian Lager 90 EBC 390 IBU
Mexican Cerveza 53 EBC 300 IBU
Australian Pale Ale 90 EBC 340 IBU

To calculate the EBC multiply by 1.25 and divide by 23.

T0 calculate the Bitterness of the Finished Beer use the following formula
(Concentrate IBU X Volume of Concentrate (1.25l )/23 X 95%

I know this is a bit of Math involved but it will give you a better Idea of how bitter the Coopers Beers are .