Cooper Family Secret

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Tanzanite

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Any information on this Beer will be welcome , looking to increase toffee malty taste with slight sweetness, will brew with 500g light spray malt and 500g brew enhancer with half tin black treacle and yet to be decided amount of boiled oats, This is just an idea please feel free to re adjust any or all of my ideas. would like to make it a full bodies malty toffee brew , Some years back there was a brew in the East midlands pubs called Old Tom it was a reddish copper coloured light mild type ale that tasted like slightly sweet bonfire toffee .
 
Bottled this beer yesterday tasted ok but no toffee malty taste just tasted like a Home ales bitter made by a Nottingham brewery from years back. maybe conditioning for a couple of months will bring out the flavors ??????????
 
Any information on this Beer will be welcome , looking to increase toffee malty taste with slight sweetness, will brew with 500g light spray malt and 500g brew enhancer with half tin black treacle and yet to be decided amount of boiled oats, This is just an idea please feel free to re adjust any or all of my ideas. would like to make it a full bodies malty toffee brew , Some years back there was a brew in the East midlands pubs called Old Tom it was a reddish copper coloured light mild type ale that tasted like slightly sweet bonfire toffee .
Geterbrewed do a stove top kit single hop Ella for £9.99.Add 2lb of malt extract to take it to 21 litres.It uses Safale US05 yeast.It was my first kit since starting back to brewing and when SWMBO tasted it she said it reminded her of Bonfire toffee when she was back in Leeds many years ago.🍺

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how much would you add if you wanted to add it to a kit say woodfords wherry would you buy it crushed and do a boil then add it has part of the water
At present I have a copy of Graham Wheelers 'Brew Your Own British Ales' which has 100 recipes inside. Crystal Malt features in many of them, but the quantity (for 23 litres) can vary from zero to 500g even for bitter. There is also one recipe for strong mild that calls for 970g! The point that I am making is there is no rule. Personally I find too much crystal malt can become a bit cloying if there is too much in there.
I suggest that if you are going to use it in a Wherry have separate brews with each of the Wherry cans to compare the results. You could then add, say 75g to one 11-12 litre brew and 250g to another, or shades of grey in between. That said I find Wherry is a bit sweet so you may want to err on the side of less rather than more. But at the end of the day its what you like.
And as far as using the crushed grain, do not boil the grains, boil the extracted liquor after a steep and a sparge. Although grain quantities will be small there is a risk of extracting unwanted tannins from the solid part of the grain
 
Drinking a bit Better but still not holding head, cant see this improving much more, so will drink and refill bottles with some thing better, not so keen on coopers kits made a few , they all ways seem to fall short on taste and body , Might give the stout a go, due to reviews on this forum , but wont be in a rush to make any more coopers stuff, They have just given all the old kits new names,
 
Drinking a bit Better but still not holding head, cant see this improving much more, so will drink and refill bottles with some thing better, not so keen on coopers kits made a few , they all ways seem to fall short on taste and body , Might give the stout a go, due to reviews on this forum , but wont be in a rush to make any more coopers stuff, They have just given all the old kits new names,

that's just marketing trying to appeal to a new audience, especially so when they change the graphics or font to give it a new/fresh look for a younger target audience. I think we will have good few more members simply because of tesco's half price sale recently ( having read a few new members first posts saying they got involved because the deal was put on hotdealsuk )

The more the merrier :)
 
that's just marketing trying to appeal to a new audience, especially so when they change the graphics or font to give it a new/fresh look for a younger target audience. I think we will have good few more members simply because of tesco's half price sale recently ( having read a few new members first posts saying they got involved because the deal was put on hotdealsuk )

The more the merrier :)

Even the aussies said that they renamed there kits to pep up there advertisements, this family secret was just a bitter , but with a new name and a few lines of bull ****, it caught me and i bought one ??? so advertising does work , its got too, theres billions spent on it each year, wonder what percentage of it is fiction and lies ???
 
Even the aussies said that they renamed there kits to pep up there advertisements, this family secret was just a bitter , but with a new name and a few lines of bull ****, it caught me and i bought one ??? so advertising does work , its got too, theres billions spent on it each year, wonder what percentage of it is fiction and lies ???

A very high percentage I should imagine
 
Up Date tried a couple of Coopers family secret last night from my stock , has not improved with aging still more or less the same has the last sample, maybe less head, will drink the last case asap so the bottles are empty for another brew, Wont make this again
 
yes i agree but when renaming old products with out stating the previous name and pulling the wool over peoples eyes must surely fall under some sort of consumer rules its fraud of a type making out its a new product when its not,
 
Even the aussies said that they renamed there kits to pep up there advertisements, this family secret was just a bitter , but with a new name and a few lines of bull ****, it caught me and i bought one ??? so advertising does work , its got too, theres billions spent on it each year, wonder what percentage of it is fiction and lies ???

That was probably me.

Coopers have pimped the kits a little, but it is bull****. Both the IPA's are American style. Despite the advertising I find it hard to believe Thomas Cooper knew very much about what hops were being using in 'Merica in 1862.

I'm just about to bottle an Amber Ale. A friend wanted some, so he bought the kit and I'm brewing it for him. I've told him not to expect too much.

Personally I'm moving on and trying some different brands. Apart from making toucan stout of course.
 
That was probably me.

Coopers have pimped the kits a little, but it is bull****. Both the IPA's are American style. Despite the advertising I find it hard to believe Thomas Cooper knew very much about what hops were being using in 'Merica in 1862.

I'm just about to bottle an Amber Ale. A friend wanted some, so he bought the kit and I'm brewing it for him. I've told him not to expect too much.

Personally I'm moving on and trying some different brands. Apart from making toucan stout of course.

Pete i have been keeping away from Cooper kits has i find them lacking , i have just finished the Family Secret and now i am drinking there Mexican Cerveza i made in November, it is a lovely pint clean clear nice head and retention but short on taste and flavour quite weak. Is there Toucan Stout a better kit , i like a creamy full roasted thick stout like the best draught Guinness, only pulled in a good Irish pub like black cream
 
Pete i have been keeping away from Cooper kits has i find them lacking , i have just finished the Family Secret and now i am drinking there Mexican Cerveza i made in November, it is a lovely pint clean clear nice head and retention but short on taste and flavour quite weak. Is there Toucan Stout a better kit , i like a creamy full roasted thick stout like the best draught Guinness, only pulled in a good Irish pub like black cream

The toucan is two cans. I use stout and Coopers Dark Ale. I don't always use Coopers stout as there is a homebrew store I drive past every so often and they might have Muntons or something half price if it's within three months of use by date.

I don't think you'll ever get the creamy head at home. I've read the creamy head is because they use nitrogen rather than CO2 in the kegs. And also the little widgets in the cans.
 
The toucan is two cans. I use stout and Coopers Dark Ale. I don't always use Coopers stout as there is a homebrew store I drive past every so often and they might have Muntons or something half price if it's within three months of use by date.

I don't think you'll ever get the creamy head at home. I've read the creamy head is because they use nitrogen rather than CO2 in the kegs. And also the little widgets in the cans.

Will have a crack at this after i bottle my current batches, looking for taste flavour and a good beer Abv is not my top concern unlike some . thanks mate :thumb:
 
Will have a crack at this after i bottle my current batches, looking for taste flavour and a good beer Abv is not my top concern unlike some . thanks mate :thumb:

Actually the creamy head can be made using a syringe.
Pour the beer. Then suck up some beer in a syringe.
Then insert the syringe into your beer and you get a creamy head.... apparently.
I've read this and the amount you suck up varies 3-10 ml.
I haven't tried it myself.
 
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