Bulldog premium bitter and cooper real ale

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So the quest for tweaking and building up my stockpiles for BBQ season continues
Picked up two kits on very special offers due to short date coding. Whilst I was there I picked up a 1.5kg can of Cooper's malt extract 'Light'

As i have a stock of s-04, I'll ditch the supplied yeast and have a go at rescuing 2 old kits into something hopefully quite quaffable. I know, I know - old kits degrade
But I reckon with using lme instead of just sugar and giving them a hi of real hops, they'll come good.

First up the Cooper's real ale.
I'm going to boil up half the can of lme in 5l water with 250gm sugar and 250gm golden syrup and 25g fuggles leaf hops to add a bit of bittering. 30minute boil should do.
I'll finish with a dry hop for 5 days using 25g challenger pellets for aroma once primary is complete. and brew short to 20l

Bulldog premium bitter will also get half a can of lme and treated exactly the same as the Cooper's.

Reason I'm doing them the same?
Well that's what I have left in my brew cupboard! Plus it will be interesting to see how they differ when given the same treatment.

Not done either of these kits before,so reckon it'll be interesting.
 
Ok just reading up a bit and I am venturing on to the path of partial extract brewing here without even realising!
So did a bit of reading and I am going to do a 30min boil using half the lme in 5l (to prevent darkening/caramelised the sugar) adding the fuggles first and then adding the second half of the lme at 5mins along with the challenger hops for aroma. Wait till it's cool and bung it all in with each of the kits and top up to 20l.
Might still do a dry hop though, but I'll give them a taste beforehand to see if they need it.
 
after doing even more reading - you read a lot in this hobby!!! - about hop utilisation against boil sizes and high SG worts, i decided to do a 10 litre boil with half the LME added.
Once it was roiling, added 50gms fuggles.
after 20 mins i added the rest of the LME and 50gms challenger and turned the heat off.

left it to cool for 15 mins and strained it into another pan. this got split between the two kits and made up to 20l.

Coopers real ale - SG 1045
Bulldog premium bitter - SG 1050
both have been pitched with Safale-04, so reckon i'll be ending up with a decent 4.5% brew out of each
 

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