Coopers Draught

[ColmR]

I fancy doing a quick brew and was considering the Coopers Draught, maybe with a little extra hops and fermented with US-05. Anyone used it before? Is it a decent kit?

Also, there seems to be two options. One is the standard kit and the other is the Thomas Cooper Series. They're the same price. Any reason to go for one over the other?

[Metattron]

I did the standard one a while back, dry hopped with some galaxy hops.  Just used the coopers yeast.  Turned out very nice.

[ColmR]

What style would you call it? Pale Ale?

[Metattron]

Some judgey types may disagree, but if it's pale and it's ale I call it a pale ale!  Really good kit though, finished out nice and clear.  Haven't tried it without any hop additions.

[LordEoin]

The original series comes with ale yeast.
The TC series comes with a blend of Ale and Lager yeast.

I'll try find out f there's any difference in the goop.

[ColmR]

The original series comes with ale yeast.
The TC series comes with a blend of Ale and Lager yeast.

I'll try find out f there's any difference in the goop.

Thanks a mil. Ya I worked out the yeast differences but was probably going to throw it anyway. Interested to see what people say about the "goop".

[Richie71]

I made the original one around this time last year with 700g of brewing sugar and 500g of malt extract. It turned out nice & clear. Nice refreshing beer for the summer months.

[LordEoin]

The TC version has more late additions of cascade, and possibly a different grain bill.
Basically it's a different beer

[ColmR]

Brewed this yesterday. 23L and OG 1046.

Went with

• Coopers Draught TCS
• 1 can LME
• 300g Carapils steeped
• 300g very light Crystal steeped
• 30g Northern Brewer boil for 5 mins

Steeped the grain, added the LME and added water to about 8L and brought to the boil. Started a 15 min boil and added the hops @5min. Then added the Coopers can at knock out. Cooled using wort chiller and diluted it up to 22L. Added 1L starter of SF Lager yeast (WLP810). The yeast was good and healthy so fermentation started pretty much straight away.

My one worry is that there won't be enough bitterness to balance the amount of malt added. I'm hoping to have gotten a few IBUs out of the hop addidtion. But the wort tasted decent, so I think I should be ok.

[LordEoin]

It'll be grand

[ColmR]

Bottled last Sunday and opened one yesterday to see how it's getting on. Not done carbonating as you can imagine. But I was surprised by the amount of sulphur present. I did use a lager yeast. Hopefully this will go away. Anyone any experience of this?

Yeast was WLP810.

I've used it before in all grain batches and haven't had this issue. Having said that, I'm not sure if I tasted the beer so young either.

It was left in Primary for almost 3 weeks, and there wasn't much sulphur present then. 

[LordEoin]

I've not used that yeast, but the taste 'should' dissipate with time.

[ColmR]

Just an update on this kit. Must be almost a month in bottles now and the beer is starting to drink pretty good. The sulphur has gone away. For me I think there's too much sweet malt so if I was to do it again I'd drop the Carapils. I didn't notice much benefit from it in terms of head retention either.

But the Northern Brewer and WLP810 did very well here.

I brought a bottle along to the NCB meet on Tuesday and it went down quite well. I think people were quite surprised that this was a kit beer.