Coopers English Bitter using 2 cans

Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Brewed_Force

Brewed_Force

Member
Joined
Sep 24, 2014
Messages
636
Reaction score
201
Location
Liverpool, UK
OK guys, here's the story...I was given 2 cans of Coopers English Bitter for xmas. I've now got 45 empty bottles so I thought "Lets start a brew going."
Then the thought crossed my mind -what about using the 2 cans with no DME or sugar, like a 2 can kit
Has anybody done this? What did the resulting brew end up like?
Any idea what ABV I would end up with? (I usually brew 23L) Is there a calculator to work it out?
Does this sound like a good idea or should I stick to my usual 1 can + fermentables?:wink:
 
Brewed_Force said:
OK guys, here's the story...I was given 2 cans of Coopers English Bitter for xmas. I've now got 45 empty bottles so I thought "Lets start a brew going."
Then the thought crossed my mind -what about using the 2 cans with no DME or sugar, like a 2 can kit
Has anybody done this? What did the resulting brew end up like?
Any idea what ABV I would end up with? (I usually brew 23L) Is there a calculator to work it out?
Does this sound like a good idea or should I stick to my usual 1 can + fermentables?:wink:
Click to expand...

so your 1 kit gives an final abv estimate..... hmmm..

plug your ingredients into brewtarget or beerengine till you match the abv the kit is estimated at if brewed to their instructions.

Then remove the additional fermantables that the recipe needs (apart from the can of course), and double what you put the can of LME value. the non canned fermantables are a known amout. The fementables in the can of LME is not known. so for a 1 can recipe tweak the amount of LME in the software to get your abv estimate.

Please feel to shoot me down in flames, :electric: but it's just a bit of algebra to find the unknown then double it. So you'll have a good estimate of abv using both cans with no sugar.
 
Hi Andy,

I did something similar to this last year. Rather than the 2 cans of the English Bitter you have, I used a can of the English bitter and a can of Coopers Amber Malt Extract with no other fermentables added.
Brewed it to 20 litres, fermented it with the yeast that came with the English Bitter kit and a packet of Gervin G12 Ale yeast.
I was really pleased with the result. ABV was 6.93% and was much nicer than the Mexican Cerveza, Canadian Blonde and English bitter I brewed with Sugars. It was far better in taste than the Wherry kit I did for Christmas.
Your 2 Bitter kits may well be better than 1 + the Amber Malt Extract can.

Having done a 2 can kit I don't think I would go back to doing 1 can kits plus fermentables. I have a Coopers Russian Imperial Stout that I have tweaked a little that will be ready for bottling next week and have a 4 can brew planned for the spring!

Cheers.
 
Two cans brewed to 23 litres would give an OG of 1044. ABV around 4.3%. A 1kg bag of sugar gives nearly as much fermentable sugar as a can of liquid extract.

The single cans are given a bitterness level for 23 litres, so if you use two cans you get twice the bitterness. Coopers English bitter has about 43 IBUs I believe, so you'd be getting 86, which is extremely bitter. I'm sure there is crystal malt in that kit too, and you'd be doubling the crystal content too. With that particular kit I wouldn't do it myself, I'd get dry extract or brew enhancer. And dry hop with English hops or Styrian Goldings - use any hop you like really.
 
:doh:
Brewed_Force said:
Any idea what ABV I would end up with? (I usually brew 23L):wink:
Click to expand...

Based on my calculations brewing 2 cans to 23l will give you somewhere in the region of 6.0%, but this kit tends to have a weird taste due to the hops, this does however improve with time, there is a whole thread on the weird taste.

See correction below.
 
Last edited:
The two cans on their own won't give 6% - you would need to add sugar/extract/enhancer.

There are online beer recipe calculators for checking these things out.
 
clibit said:
The two cans on their own won't give 6% - you would need to add sugar/extract/enhancer.
Click to expand...

Apologies, I had done the calculation at a can weighing 1.8kg and they are only 1.7kg and also mistakenly added some sugar, I estimate it will be nearer 4.4%.

Either way give it a go & keep us informed.
 
Having just done an English Bitter myself, I'm with clibit. It's already one of the more bitter kits, so doubling the bitterness would make it pretty much undrinkable I reckon. It's a lovely pint just as it is - the nearest thing I've brewed to Hobgoblin - so I'd be inclined to make up one of your cans as normal and save the other for a rainy day.
 
Agree with all other posters here, this is just THE wrong kit to double up on,

Sorry!

But it is a great kit to do hop experiments with as the bittering is absolutely so solid that you can add a great load of flavour / aroma hops without any chance of an undrinkable outcome.
 
Thanks for all the advice. I admit I didn't factor in the bitterness when thinking about doing this with 2 cans.
I'll stick to using one can with some DME. Presumably a medium, say 500g and a bit of sugar?
 
Brewed_Force said:
Thanks for all the advice. I admit I didn't factor in the bitterness when thinking about doing this with 2 cans.
I'll stick to using one can with some DME. Presumably a medium, say 500g and a bit of sugar?
Click to expand...

700g will be fine and if you can get your hands on some hops, 25-30g or so, this is the one to use them with for me.
 
If you want an English style bitter, use good English flavour hops - Goldings, Fuggles, First Gold, Progress, Northdown, Challenger are all really good for flavour. Or Styrian Goldings, which are used in a lot of English ales. I like Brewer's Gold too.

If you want a more powerful, American hop kick, try Cascade, Centennial, Amarillo, Citra, Simcoe etc

There are good NZ flavour hops too - Green Bullet, Nelson Sauvin, Motueka, Wakatu for example. They tend to be fruity but not as powerful as American hops.

Most people who do kits add them to the fermenter after the krausen has died down. But you could also boil some for 5-10 minutes with a little of the malt extract diluted in 2 - 3 litres of water. Then add that to the FV before you top up with cold water.
 

Similar threads

H
Disaster beer?
Replies
11
Views
540
MashBag
MashBag
Froggie Simon
There is nothing like a silly question, or so they say!
Replies
15
Views
760
Froggie Simon
Froggie Simon
ScrumpyRam
Second AG brew - cloudy beer
Replies
13
Views
882
ScrumpyRam
ScrumpyRam
tester
IPA questions
Replies
14
Views
1K
Birdsnestbrewery
Birdsnestbrewery
The-Engineer-That-Brews
Bottling, using a corny as a "brite tank"
Replies
2
Views
152
Sadfield
Sadfield

Latest posts

Back
Top