Nut Brown Ale & American Amber Ale

[ColinC]

Last chance to brew before the new year so got a couple of kits on the go today.
I (roughly) went for a Nut Brown Ale & an American Amber Ale.
I used Coopers kits as the base & tweaked them a bit. Batteries were dead in my weighing scales so just roughly guessed the measurements!

Nut Brown Ale:
1  can Coopers Dark Ale kit
300g Crystal Malt
100g Chocolate Malt
1kg Medium dry malt extract
Nottingham yeast

Steep crystal & chocolate malt for 30 mins in about 2 litres of water @ 65-70c.
Strain into fermentor
Add can of Coopers Darke Ale kit
Add 1kg of Amber (medium) dry malt extract & mix till dissolved
Top up to 22 litres
Pitch Nottingham yeast.
O.G. 1.044


American Amber Ale:
1 can Coopers Draught Ale kit
150g Crystal malt
70g of Cascade hops
1kg amber dry malt extract
US-05 yeast

Steep crystal malt for 30 mins in about 3 litres of water @ 65-70c.
Strain into a pot.
Bring to boil & add 1kg of Amber dry malt extract
30g cascade – 15mins
20g Cascade – 5mins
Add Coopers Draught kit to FV.
Strain sticky hoppy wort into FV & mix it all up until dissolved.
Top up to 23 litres
Pitch US-05 yeast.
O.G.  10.45

Going to dry hop with about 20g Cascade for about 5 days when fermentation dies down a bit.

[LordEoin]

I'll definitely be trying that American Amber Ale at some point.
I love cascade

I've been wondering though, if there's any advantage/disadvantage to doing the hop boil with the DME?
I generally just boil in the grain steeped water but I see people doing it both ways.

[irish_goat]

Why bother using the Coopers kit when you can just buy malt extract(cheaper)?  :-?

[ColinC]

I'll definitely be trying that American Amber Ale at some point.
I love cascade

I've been wondering though, if there's any advantage/disadvantage to doing the hop boil with the DME?
I generally just boil in the grain steeped water but I see people doing it both ways.

I only did that to get rid of DME clumps! Not sure what the impact is on hop utilisation or not?....

[ColinC]

Why bother using the Coopers kit when you can just buy malt extract(cheaper)?  :-?

I don't have a big boiler or chiller. I brew in my kitchen.
And 40 minute brew days are easy!

[Weiss]

The NBA sounds delicious.

Will have to have a go at it. 

[ColinC]

The NBA sounds delicious.

Will have to have a go at it. 

Looking forward to it myself. I'll bring them both along to the February meet in the Lucan County!

[LordEoin]

Why bother using the Coopers kit when you can just buy malt extract(cheaper)?  :-?

Why bother starting with a base of unhopped malt when Coopers hopped LME kits are only slightly more expensive?
What are you? Some kinda hop hater?
We don't take kindly to hop haters around here! 

[Weiss]

Last chance to brew before the new year so got a couple of kits on the go today.
I (roughly) went for a Nut Brown Ale & an American Amber Ale.
I used Coopers kits as the base & tweaked them a bit. Batteries were dead in my weighing scales so just roughly guessed the measurements!

Nut Brown Ale:
1  can Coopers Dark Ale kit
300g Crystal Malt
100g Chocolate Malt
1kg Medium dry malt extract
Nottingham yeast

Steep crystal & chocolate malt for 30 mins in about 2 litres of water @ 65-70c.
Strain into fermentor
Add can of Coopers Darke Ale kit
Add 1kg of Amber (medium) dry malt extract & mix till dissolved
Top up to 22 litres
Pitch Nottingham yeast.
O.G. 1.044

Colin,

I put down the nut brown ale today.

Bolied 300g crystal dark malt + 100g choc malt for 20 mins in 2 litres of water and then used the Coopers dark ale kit, Coopers dark malt extract and kit yeast.

Got an OG of 1050.

Have you tasted yours yet? 

[ColinC]

Colin,

I put down the nut brown ale today.

Bolied 300g crystal dark malt + 100g choc malt for 20 mins in 2 litres of water and then used the Coopers dark ale kit, Coopers dark malt extract and kit yeast.

Got an OG of 1050.

Have you tasted yours yet? 

Sorry Weiss only seeing this now. Mine turned out quite tasty. First taste after a couple of weeks bottled the chocolate was quite sharp but it mellowed out a good bit.

Will you bring a bottle to the next meet in the Lucan County? We can compare them thre!

[LordEoin]

Yeah, chocolate can be a bit overpowering young but mellows out really well after a while.
I've had beers that I hated at the start but when I went back to them a couple of months later they turned out to be some of my favourites. 

[Weiss]

Colin,

I only bottled the NBA on 18th Feb so will have to leave it for a while before bringing it to a meet. 

[LordEoin]

I'd give it at least 2 months and expect it to be amazing at about 3 months.
But every brew is different...

[ColinC]

Just checked the results of these beers from the competition. American Pale Ale sored 25, Nut Brown Ale scored 35. Wasn't expecting anything close to this with a beer made from kits & only bottled about 6 weeks.

Delighted!! 

How did other peoples kits get on in the competition?

[Ciderhead]

Well done!
My kit coopers blonde ale at 38 points that I did 2 years ago did better than my cascade blonde AG