Coopers DIY Beer Dark Ale Homebrewing Craft Beer Brewing Extract

Ok so as with everything people either have good or bad experiences. Personally speaking I am on the good end of this. I’ve been homebrewing now for over ten years and have worked as a brewer at 2 brewery’s including my current job. This isn’t meant to be a blow your mind out of the water, brew snob beer. It’s meant to help people learn the art of brewing, sure some people will get low abv or have bad fermentation’s but this little kit is a darn sight cheaper than doing an all grain and way cheaper than doing a full on brewery batch. It can be a brew for people to get interested while producing a rather good ale for the money, or it can be whatever you wanna make it.For me I was in a time crunch and had some friends that wanted a fun little beer so I added in muntons dark malt extract, maple syrup, brown sugars, more hops, and then some other goodies and I produced a stellar little Indian brown ale that was perfect for a fall seasonal with this kit (coopers dark ale) as my primary ingredient and it ended right around 8%.Brewing is about having fun :) so grab a can mix and match, make your own amazing little brew and keep it up the only way we grow in this world is by constant innovation and evolving our ideas! And remember failure is the first step to success, I’ve messed up plenty of brews when I was learning and even on a rare occasion nowadays (hasn’t happened in the last 7 months 🤞) but the thing is to learn from your mistakes and move on. Brewing is very forgiving in that sense.Cheers lads and brew on!

This kit has almost everything you need (including yeast and directions) to make a stout that equals Guinness and exceeds the quality of some stuff sold as stout. You add plain old store-bought sugar and water. The kit includes directions, but the directions actually make it sound as if making brew is harder than it really is. I combined the contents of the can with five gallons of pure bottled water, added sugar and the yeast that came with the kit, and mixed thoroughly (emphasize "mix thoroughly"); The directions call for hot or boiled water, but room temperature water works just as well as long as you mix sugar, yeast, and the contents of the can thoroughly. Then I allowed it to ferment at room temperature for a week. The result was a tasty, satisfying brew. You could bottle the brew after fermentation, but I pour it right out of the gallon jugs it was brewed in. The dregs stay reliably on the bottom of the bottle. Cheers! (P.S.--no, I do not work for the company that sells this stuff. I'm just an old hippie who likes his booze.)

First note: there is conflicting info regarding which "Brew Enhancer" that Coopers recommends be used with this particular extract. You should be using Brew Enhancer 2, which Coopers themselves recommends on their site. I used Brew Enhancer 1 based on the bum advice for this product on Amazon, and though it certainly didn't ruin the beer, it contains no dry malt extract and thus doesn't produce the mouthfeel that is traditionally associated with a stout.Beyond that, this is a pretty solid pre-hopped stout extract. A lot of people use it as a base for other recipes, but I just followed the included instructions for the most part. Notable screw ups:1) I boiled the extract. This was a mistake. Traditionally, many homebrewers insist on boiling their extract, but opinions are changing on this. You DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT boil pre-hopped extract like this one. You risk boiling off some/all of the hop characteristics. The instructions that come with the kit say only to boil the water and sugar (or the Coopers Brew Enchancer should you go that route)...follow them. They are right.2) I screwed up my water temps (partially due to boiling more materials than I should have) and ended up pitching the yeast into the wort at 90F. While this is in the tolerable range for the Coopers yeast (barely), it produced strong estery (almost raisin-like) flavors. I'd recommend making sure the wort is at 70F-75F, even if the instructions say 80F is still within the "good" range, unless you want a bit of fruitiness.Fermentation stopped after about 9 days in the 68F-72F range. I then bottled, and just so I could try more of Coopers' stuff, I used their carbonation drops. After a week the beer was nice and carbed. Just remember to give the bottles a good turning/shake a little while after you cap them, so the sugar from the dissolved drops distributes in the bottle a bit.I cracked one open after that first week in the bottle. As I said before, the beer came out with strong raisin/wine-like flavors likely due to the high temperatures when I pitched the yeast (it takes a loooong time for 6 gallons of wort to cool down at room temperature!). I gave the bottles more time to sit...FINAL BEER VERDICT: The brew has been bottle-conditioning for over a month now, and the raisin-flavors have subsided considerably. It now *really* tastes like a dry black lager. Not great, but very drinkable. It would be a bit better if the mouthfeel and head (of which there is plenty) were a bit more stout-like.Again, I STRONGLY recommend anyone who goes by the included kit recipe to use the Coopers Brew Enhancer 2 or DME (dry malt extract)...NOT the Brew Enhancer 1. It should result in a nice solid stout. Also...aside from a few test bottles, give the bottled brew a few weeks at room temperature to condition. It makes a HUGE difference.As for the Coopers Stout extract itself, it seems like a good product and I could see myself using it as basis for more elaborate stout recipes in the future.

I add 600ml of fresh strawberry juice, put through my juicer and strained several times, + 1kg of brown sugar to this extract. Put's me at about 6% possibly more. I also use 6 gallons of walmart distilled water (88 cents per gallon), as my tap water tastes like a swimming pool. I put the bottles in the bath tub for a week, incase they blow, before refrigeration for 2 months for a bit more head. The brew has just a hint of strawberry back flavor, and carmel/molasses from the brown sugar. Perfect with this extract's already back bitterness. 7 days brew time. It's killer fruitelicious! Less than 50 bucks for 5 1/2 12 packs of what I was paying for bluemoon's or corona's at 20 bucks for a 12 pack, and a much smoother beer + better buzz. I lover Coopers. :)

I have brewed Coopers Dark Ale, English Bitters and Irish Stout. Much easier than the kits that require 1-3 hours of boiling. I simply add 4 pounds of everyday cane sugar, mix it with hot water from my coffee brewer, add 5 gallons of tap water and pitch the yeast. Sometimes it takes 1 week to brew, sometimes 2 weeks. I stopped using the hydrometer a long time ago. It's obvious when it's ready to bottle. I prime it with half a cup of cane sugar and bottle it in 2, 1, and 1.5 liter soda bottles. They work great. I also bottle some in the clear Mexican beer bottles and use my capper. Bottom line: Home brewed Coopers makes store bought beer taste like soda water.