If you missed the amazing news from yesterday, I’m now the proud owner of a new smoker and now a DIY Beer Coopers Lager kit! Yes indeed I’m truly strapped in for one ripper of a fathers day with future thoughts of smoked meats matched perfectly with copious amounts (23 litres when all said and done) of beer from the shed.
We’ve still got to bolt together the smoker but while I waited for my wife to finish work, I figured it was the perfect time to put this kit through it’s paces. After all I’ve already unboxed the whole kit and caboodle, now it’s time for all the ingredients of this Lovely Donna Lager (named after the wonderful woman who bought me the Coopers lager kit of course!) to come together in one foamy contained wonderful mess.
Let’s get mixing Brewmaster Flex!
Coopers lager kit mixing day
First things first, we need to get rid of everything in the box so we’ve got some working room. I highly suggest finding some kind of plastic crate for the PET bottles because otherwise they will (and have in my case) go everywhere.
In goes the plastic tap (make sure you wet the o rings and push til you hear a click) and the temp sticker on the side. What I didn’t realise is that I managed to stick it to the Krausen collar (it extends your fermeneter out for really foamy head growth in the first few days of fermentation) and had to move it to the main part of the plastic. Rookie mistake, easily rectified.
Now that the mixing bowl…I mean fermenter is ready, it’s time for the cake…er Coopers lager kit ingredients! We’ll explore the strange looking extract in just a set but first it’s time for the Brew Enhancer 2 which adds flavour and mouth feel, very important come enjoy a beer day!
Now you understand the bake a cake reference because if you didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t know if this was Brew Enhancer 2 or Vanilla Cake Mix. Either way we’re going to use it to create something tasty, so into the giant cake/beer mixing machine we go!
While that sits there looking all vanilla-ery, it’s time to give the Coopers lager kit a nice warm bath. Not because it’s had a hard day, more a handy tip I remember from yonks ago. Sit the tin in some very hot water for a few minutes to make it so much easier to get everything out.
Because if you’ve never seen wort extract before it’s going to be quite the surprise in a couple of photos time.
Show you the code I got under the Coopers lager kit tin? Too late, I’ve already entered to win $2000. What would I buy with 2 grand? More beer for the DIY kit and more meat for the smoker obviously!
Mmmm, super thick maple syrup, super thick gravy or ready to go treacle, you decide! It looks so alien but this is wort extract in it’s ready to go form, negating the need to boil grains to get all the sugars out. Giving it the warm bath treatment makes it flow out of the tin a little easier because let’s face it, this isn’t the fastest moving mix on the planet..
Patty cake, patty cake, brewing man…into the fermenter as fast as the laws of gravity allow.
Again, I feel like I’m making a cake. A, eggless fermenter cake that’s going to take three weeks to bake and have a semi decent alcohol content when it’s finished.
Also it’s going to be a liquid cake with a hopefully foaming head. That’s a Cooper lager kit cake for you!
Like when I make pancakes, there’s chunks of powder floating around. I’m not too worried about this, they will eventually dissolve into the brew mix.
With 2 litres of water added, now I’ve moved the Coopers larger kit to it’s new base HQ, the shed at the end of the carport. And I’ve moved it there at this stage for a couple of reasons:
- The temperature is usually constant in there and by that I mean it’s not warm. Excellent for keeping things around the 21 degree mark as they suggest.
- This thing would be a pain to move in there at the ‘add water til it’s 23 litres full mark.’ I’ve saved my back from possible beer related injury early, clever me!
It’s at this stage of project LDL that I realise we don’t have any water carrying vessels of a capacity larger that 2 litres (I’m not using any of our buckets knowing what’s been in them) which means this next step of adding enough water to fill to the 23 litre line is going to take a few trips to the kitchen then to the shed and back again.
With all this walking, I could really do with a beer but I’m going to have to wait..
We’re slowly getting there. The instructions for the Coopers lager kit tell me to aim for around 21 degrees so it’s a matter of warm and cold water and of course the sticker on the side of the fermenter is telling me everything from 18-23 so I’m sort of there.
I’ve wrangled in a rogue family member to help me fill because why not? She was just wandering the halls of the house why her brother terrorised the neighbourhood on his bike. ‘Can I taste your beer when you’re done Dad?’ Sophie asks. ‘No. But thanks for helping fill the beast!’
Together we fill the Coopers lager kit project to the fabled 23 litres. That’s roughly 60 beers this batch is going to make which at the price of this $99 kit with everything in it, means I’m producing a $1.60 lager. I can’t even get petrol that low!
Now that we’re full mate, time to pitch in the yeast!
Once upon a time I’d mix this in but reading the instructions, apparently you just have to sprinkle it on the top of the batch and that’s it. So Sophie did the honours while I explained what happens next in the crudest kid level version I could think of.
‘The yeasties eat all the sugars in the mix and fart out some alcohol.’
I should have that chiselled on my gravestone I think!
And that’s the process done and dusted! Time to put the lid back on this Coopers larger kit and lock things down like the Olympic village when it’s game time with these fidgety little lock tabs.
And that’s all we have to do today for our Cooper lager kit to get up and running! Mix it all up, fill it up, get the yeast dancing and count down some days (6 to be precise before the first tasting.) When the gravity/alcohol reading starts to read stable, it’s bottling time. Until then we wait and keep an eye on this delicious LDL as things progress.
Happy Fathers day!
Captains Log, Coopers Lager Kit observations
DAY 1
Best described as: Fabius Bile’s breeding vat. There are things forming, there are things floating, there are things spawning in there but don’t panic it’s perfectly normal. The yeasts are busy doing their little sugars into alcohol conversion dance and creating little wispy brain matter looking strands that float about until they reach sentience.
No wait, that’s not it.
Anywhoo while not as busy as it was a couple of hours after pitching the yeast, I’m happy to see things are rolling quite nicely. This Coopers lager kit is off to a flyer!
DAY 2
Best described as: Skinny latte with one. I once saw this similar colour come out of my Toyota’s radiator once and shuddered because it should have been a clear red, not solid coffee mix. Here though it’s business as usual and there’s every chance the hazy cloudy effect has come about because temperature in the brew shed has dropped overnight as expected. It was in the high 20’s when I moved it in there, now with the cold windy night and shed conditions, it’s at the 15 mark which I’m quite happy about. It’s going to take a while before things heat up to the high point again.
DAY 3 (3 DAYS BEFORE FIRST TASTING)
Best described as: One murky iced latte. Not much has changed with operation Coopers Lager Kit here save FOR THE SUDDEN BURST OF COLD! Good gods has the temperature dropped, so much so the temp sticker has now run out of low readings.
I don’t really see this as a problem though, once upon a time using a steady controlled temp of 4 degrees (using an Inkbird temp controller and a mini fridge) to create an absolutely luscious Munich Helles. Therefore this verging on bitterly cold should do wonders for my lager shouldn’t it?
Shouldn’t it??
DAY 4
Best described as: One chilled home brew beer busy fermenting in the shed, taking from a different angle than the day before. Still cold though. How cold? Well I hear the band Foreigner getting into one of their biggest hits (and no I don’t mean ‘I want to know what love is’) every time I walk in here now. Everything else is relatively the same in the adventures of the Coopers lager kit at this stage – still looks the same, still hasn’t achieved sentience yet but I’m sure it’s on the way.
DAY 6 – TASTING DAY!
Wait, what happened to day 5 I hear you ask? Er life got in the way. A busy afternoon, I had to pick up the kids, I got stuck editing another project, so much good stuff really that I didn’t have time to pop in and see how the Coopers Lager Kit brew was going…although I’m going to guess it looked pretty much like it has the last few days so I don’t think I missed much.
Anyhoos, welcome to day 6 where it is indeed tasting day! Time to get into the first gravity reading and give things a little sip, just in case I discover I’ve actually made Kombucha here instead of luscious lager. Firstly according to the instructions I had to draw out 30 mls and then dump it because: reasons. And boy who doesn’t love large amounts of tasty head?
Now the instruction booklet tells me to fill up the flask with a 3cm gap up top. Which turned out to be a bad idea because as soon as I tried to float the hydrometer, beer gushed over the top. Will try at least 6cm gap next time.
The next issue I had was that the hydrometer did not want to sit still. Yes it either had ants in its pants or more likely oodles of co2 gas in the brew kept it rising and falling slowly making an educated guess at what the starting gravity (Sg) might be. So it’s…uh…something.
Look it’s early days, I’ll try again in a couple of days and see if things calm down. Then if I few a few days in a row where the gravity remains the same then I know it’s right for bottling. In the meantime though it is tasting day and that meant I got to empty the testing flask, into my own mouth.
And like it suggested, it did taste like warm flat beer (like you’d come back to a half finished lager can a hour after opening it) with a real basic beery taste. Which while it’s a basic flavour that isn’t going to set the world on fire, the good news is I haven’t accidentally made kombucha here. What a great start!
DAY 8 – THE BREW GOES ON
I’ve given the batch a couple of days to burp out some more Co2 which made things a lot easier to get a reading on the starting gravity. But to make extra sure, I filled up the testing flask and then wandered inside to play a bit more CIV IV Master of Mana for half an hour. No worries now with Co2 making the hydrometer bounce, the Coopers Lager Kit mix is finally behaving itself. And thankfully because of the markings at the top, I can see it move in .010 increments which means my SG or OG (Original gravity) is at 1.010.
If I’ve done this right (and it has been quite some time) then if this brew is looking to hit a 4% ABV, the final reading needs to be around 0.98 something yes?
Yes? I guess we’ll find out in a couple of days!
DAY 9
Well things are happening…er fermenting. Once again I set things up for a reading and then clean forgot to come back, walking the dog down at the local oval instead. Thankfully I remembered on the way back to find that yes, it’s a completely different reading today and sitting a touch over 1.031 – which if you put that and yesterdays reading into the Brewersfriend ABV calculator…actually gives a negative. However if you swap them around, it’s at 2.76% ABV.
Maybe I should disregard the original reading and use this as the original instead? Either way, it needs far more days Captain!
Massive head slap moment: While using the ABV calculator above, I rediscovered (because I should have remembered this) that the original gravity…is measured before fermentation! No wonder I’m getting strange readings! I have no idea what my OG is now but reading up on many forums from other brewers, their Coopers Lager Kit started off around 1.035 so let’s go with that!
DAY 11
The good new is I’m getting better at drawing beer out of the fermenter slowly so I don’t have a foamy head in the testing flask ready to erupt like earlier. I’ve also put a convenient rubber band around it as a fill in marker because the instructions suggesting 3cm is rubbish (6 doesn’t work either) as everything spills over as soon as you put the hydrometer in.
Today in amongst the tiny foam, we’re sitting at 1.010 again like day 8. I have no idea why it’s gone back. But if this is the final gravity (it’s got to be this number consistently for that to happen) then we’re looking at roughly 3.3% alcohol by volume.
Interestingly there is a part in the instructions that reads: Original gravity will be 1038 +/- 2. There is no need to measure this. Clever me forgot that I did read this. Still, better late than never!
DAY UH…14?
I’ve lost track of the days because there’s been so much on from mechanics visits, to tax men to 6 hour trips to Melbourne and back for a 10 minute appointment. So I’m not exactly sure what day I’m up to but obviously since I’ve been away, my beer has gotten a little redder?
Yes somehow the Coopers lager kit has mysteriously disappeared and been replaced with some Irish Red Ale instead which wouldn’t be bad as I tried making that once and it got infected, joy. However as red as it looks here (it might just be the time of time I’ve walked into the shed) it’s anything but in the flask and has suddenly become so much the clearer which is lovely.
Today’s gravity is at 1.0065 so it looks like things aren’t so stable yet. Plugging in this latest value shows me the ABV is around 4.13% and since the Coopers lager kit ABV is supposed to end up at 4.3% I’m pretty damn close. So I’ll give it a few more days, see if it gets any redder and hopefully it’s bottling time soon!
DAY 16 AND 17
Yes two days for the price of one because I finally got For Honor on my computer working. Long story short I’ve had the game for years through my Ubisoft account, I could never get it to download, the game service app updated itself and suddenly I can install the thing for the first time in years.
And so I spent a fair chunk of yesterday as a Samurai cutting down knights and vikings. Good times! Meanwhile the beer looked like this!
Let’s be honest, this is a really dull part of working with the Coopers lager kit, all the waiting around and occasionally poking your nose in to take a gravity reading. Time that probably should be spent reading the instructions again really because I overlooked a couple of things…and then made a YouTube about it.
But in my defence and as stated above, we’re still on track to create some type of beer. And yes even though the instructions did say to remove the special collar on day 6, I have done it today. Better late than never right?
Honestly though things look so much better without it. It’s like a clear ocean of beer in there at the moment which makes me a very happy home brewer as I’m not seeing the spider web like growths suggesting it’s picked up some nasty infection – wonderful! Time to gravity then!
And once again it’s sitting on 1.010 which means close to 4% ABV. If we get the same reading this weekend, you know what that means! Yes, it’s clobbering ti- er bottling time!
DAY 18 – ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN SHED FRONT
Yes I know I said I’d wait for the weekend, but it’s Friday afternoon, a couple of hours before I have to pick the kids up and I figured ‘Why not kill a minute and take a reading?’ And after discovering it was the same reading as yesterday I then figured ‘Well, why not find bottle a couple of these brews up and see if I’m right?’
If I’m right: Nothing will happen to the bottles.
If I’m not right and bottled too early: Boom? We might have a tiny beer related explosion…but I doubt that.
Having read the instructions again I’ve suddenly found out what this long tube thing is for. Originally I thought it was like one of those long rods they use for tastings in wine barrels but no, this one jams into your fermenter tap like the above. It fills with beer and doesn’t empty itself unless the little valve is open down the bottom, which happens when you put a bottle over it and make it touch the bottom of the inside.
If that doesn’t make sense, this pic might.
You let the bottle fill to the stem, then take it off the feed and the preceding space left behind allows a bit of room for the two carbonation drops to plunge in and have a swim around.
Then we pop a cap on top and bada bing, bada boom there’s now a beer in the room. Well an almost finished one, which should be right to enjoy in two weeks time although I read the longer you leave it, the better it gets.
Today I’ve just filled two to see if anything at all happens over night (any obviously leakage or the shed suddenly misses a wall or something) but otherwise things are looking great so far with the LDL, the lovely Donna Lager courtesy of the Coopers Lager kit!
DAY 19 – BEER BOTTLING DAY!
Well the gravity remains stable (again) so there’s the green light, time to break out the PET bottles and get down to bottling business!
And to help me out today I’ve enlisted my daughter Sophie (the only one left in the house at the time I was in the shed) who was more than happy to roll up the sleeves and get down to filling business. Years ago she helped with one of my first home brews (popping in scoops of dextrose from memory) so this is not her first home brew rodeo!
And between the two of us washing and loading up bottles, it didn’t take long before a home brew conga line started to break out. I’m happy to report that we managed to use all but one of the bottles that came with the Coopers Lager kit although I had to tilt the almost empty fermenter forward for the last few mils to fill up the last bottle.
And with 99.9% contents gone, now we get to see the sediment left over in the fermenter begging for the hose. `Looks like a tasty liquid pancake but I certainly wasn’t silly enough to see if it tasted like it looked.
And now that things are finally contained (read: bottled), they sit in the shed going nowhere for the next two weeks slowing carbing up before a full 1-2 days in the fridge and then finally a tasting session!
Meanwhile now that the fermenter is clean again, I’m already pondering what I’m going to brew up next..
UPDATES AS THEY HAPPEN!
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