Pages: 1
Newbie - Coopers Lager with barley malt extract
I'm a relative novice regarding home brewing -- my only experience has been with Coopers kits following the standard instructions, using ordinary white sugar. I currently have a can of Coopers Lager with which I'd like to experiment. I just picked up two 500g jars of barley malt extract at my local health food store, and was thinking of using some of this instead of sugar. Is this advisable, bearing in mind that this is health food, not a homebrew product. Am I on the right track here? How much should I use? Should I add anything else, apart from the Coopers, the barley malt extract and the yeast? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Redfox, I'm new to brewing too and have been learning with the Coopers kits.
The first two kits I made were a Stout and a Dark Ale. The kit instructions asked for 1kg of regular household sugar. Most people have told me that any kit will taste better when you move away from household sugar.
My third kit was a Coopers Brewmaster IPA and this kit suggested you use 500g Light Malt Extract (LME) + 300 dextrose (corn sugar). This kit seemed much tastier than the first too. Yesterday my brother and I made a Coopers Brewmaster Pilsner. This one, like the IPA, asked for 500g LME + 300g sugar.
Today I started another Coopers Stout, this time I decided to try 500g Medium Malt Extract + 300g dextrose to see what happens.
I can't say much about your idea to use the 500g of barley malt extract. Perhaps the store can tell you whether it approximates a Light, Medium, or Dark Malt extra. If you are going to roll your dice and take your chances I'd add 500g and 300g dextrose on your first go. Do you have the producer's name on the package? It might be the same stuff they sell at a homebrew shop.
I can tell you this, I really doubt I will ever use household sugar in these kits after seeing what a difference the malt extract / dextrose did.
Hope this helps. By the way, some of the Brew Enhancers are (apparently) malt extract + dextrose or malt extract + dextrose + maltodextrin. I haven't been able to determine what the proper breakdown is.
The health food barley, I don't remember the reason, but I read somewhere online many months ago not to use it. Seems like it had something to do with the refining process in that health food was not designed for homebrewing. I'll be damned if I can remember the exact answer, but basically, the guy was told not to use it.
As for sugar, corn or cane sugar. Both are fermentable. Every homebrew store I have gone to recommends corn sugar, which is all I ever use. I read that cane produces a little more carbonation. I would stick with corn sugar personally. Corn is dextrose, cane is sucrose.
Pages: 1
Search Home Brewing Knowledge Base
Custom Search
|