Brewing with two Coopers Lager Beer Kits

Saturday, February 19, 2022

If using two cans of malt can make a handy stout, can two tins of Cooper's lager make a good brew?


Let's find out. 


My local supermarket had Coopers beer kits for a super cheap 11 dollars which was about 8 - 9 bucks off the usual price. 


I checked the expiry date and it was for mid 2023 so the yeast would not be stale. 


So what the heck, I put all 7 cans on the shelf. 


But the supermarket had no DME. 


Sad face. 


So I decided to be brave and use two cans of the lager malt together. 


No DME. 


No enhancer


And no hops


So I prepared the double batch in the standard way. Sanitised the fermenter drum. Clean the spoon. Added so boiling water. Added the lager malt. Stirred the lager malt. Added 20 odd litres of water. Pitched the yeast in the customary manner. Stored the lager in the cool cupboard off to the side of our kitchen. 


two malt cans of lager batch


After about a week or so I bottled the lager brew into some green Grolsch bottles, my kind neighbour gave me. Plus a few extras that are not pictured!

These were left to condition in my shed for about two weeks. 

bottle condition lager


The sediment had settled and the beer looked fairly clear so I grabbed a couple and put them in the fridge. 


On Friday night after a hard day shuffling paperwork around the office I decided to try the lager. 


What had a made? A deliciously quaffable beer? 


No dear reader, I had made ice cream:

over carbonated beer


It would appear my beer was over carbonated. 


This is was not necessarily a surprise as two cans is a lot of food for the yeast to make into alcohol and CO2. 


Perhaps I had added too much sugar at bottling? I'm less inclined to think that the cause as I have brewed a few beers in my time and feel I have got the required sugar content down these days by batch priming. 


So if using two kits, be mindful of that. 


So was the beer any good?


At the two week point, this beer has room for improvement. It feels thicker to the mouth than a standard lager should taste. It is not as sweet as Cooper's lagers generally taste and it is not dry either. 


It was a slight hint of a whiff of something that I cannot quite decode - I suspect this beer will be best served very well chilled as that whiff dominated the beer as it warmed up. An extra week or three of conditioning may see that whiff of taste disperse. 

The final result was an OK beer result but not one I'd try to reproduce. 

HOPS BREWING KITS COOPERS


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