Coopers DIY Beer Canadian Blonde Homebrewing Craft Beer Brewing Extract

This is nothing like a Heineken. I was expecting something like what was pictured on the label. I bought one of these on May 2018 and hung onto it for 2 years before brewing it. It got pushed aside and forgotten. However, due to Coronavirus, we're going through our pantry pretty thoroughly, now that we're locked-down at home. I didn't bother checking the date, but needless to say, the LME was certainly waaaaaaaaaaaay past its "Best By:" date. I wasn't too worried that it was going to go "bad" though; it's basically liquid sugar...right? Apparently, LME darkens with age. The yeast can also be hit or miss. I brewed up the batch, added more sugar, and sprinkled in the yeast and the next day I checked on it disappointed to see no airlock activity. She just needs time since it's old yeast, and a lager strain, right? After a couple of days go by of no activity, the airlock comes to life slowly burping bubbles. I had just completed a small 1-gallon ale and only after 12 hours the airlock was bubbling away. I move the batch into the cooler basement where it finishes fermentation after 2 weeks. I was absolutely THRILLED to see the yeast had flocculated to the bottom resulting in a beautifully dark but clear beer and somewhat fizzy. I'm so happy with the results even with this "old" LME, that I ordered another on April 2020, and has a "Best By:" date of 20/06/21. It'll be interesting to see if there's a noticeable difference with fresh LME. If you do a search on "LME darkens with age", on of the first links you'll find is a guy that did a side by side experiment on new and old LME. The end result was that people could tell the difference, but they were split on which one they preferred.

Very easy to brew. I bottled last night and of course had a taste. Excellent. 8 days in the fermenter and the SG went from 1.043 to 1.003. By my calculation it is about 5.6 abv with the priming sugar. I don't know why but it came out a bit short in the last 1 lt bottle so I primed it anyway with less sugar. Glad I have some V-8 on hand. This stuff tastes great even flat, mixed in with the juice. It is my breakfast and lunch today. 2/24/17 Finally finished carbonating and stuck one in the fridge overnight to cold condition. This is a very light bodied beer, but with a few fermentables added it kicked the abv up to 5.7 appx and it is an excellent tasting beer. I will be making more of this with added Maltodextrin and other additives.. Thanks Coopers and Amazon. 6-7-17- I contacted DIY and Mr Beer. According to the rep who emailed me, this is still in production and most likely will continue to do so. Hopefully the info will be forwarded to the sales personnel and also to Amazon to clear up the problem. I have tried others and Coopers is way better than any others I have tried. It is also way cheaper to buy than MrBeer products.

LME (Liquid Malt Extract) kits are often awful. This one wasn't that bad. The picture on the can is a little misleading.... I guess if you intend to lager the hell out of it, it'll be that pretty gold color. Mine was more red than anything... But tasty? Ya... I drank it, and I'm a beer snob... For the price? Hard to beat. If you had some interesting steeping grains, you could probably make some really interesting/tasty beers out of this base kit.

After listening to the BrewStrong podcast on kit beer, I thought I'd give pre-hopped extract a try. Bought two cans; Amazon must have pretty good throughput as both appeared fresh. I was quite pleased with the outcome... a very sessionable pale ale. The main bonus of pre-hopped is that boiling isn't required other than to pasteurize the DME (should you go that route instead of sugar). It's also a great option for experimenting with different hops and yeast, since you can avoid all the gyrations of all-grain or the full 60 or 90 minute boil. My tweaks: -- Used 3lbs of extra light DME, instead of sugar -- Used distilled water -- Did a 15 minute boil, with hop additions at 15 min and flame out (Centennial for one batch, Nelson Sauvin for the other); extract was added at flame out -- Pitched Wyeast 1056 in the first batch, used Wyeast 1318 for the second. -- Dry hopped with Centennial/Nelson for first and second batches, respectively Can't speak to following the directions as written nor using the included yeast packet; but for a more experienced brewer, it's well worth a go for a quick brew day and/or fairly controlled yeast/hop experimentation.

I just finished brewing my 10th batch of homebrew. 3 of which were pre-hopped Cooper's kits like this. One was terrible (Australian Draught), and two were barely drinkable (Australian Ale and English Bitter). The other batches I brewed with Briess, Northern Brewer, or Coopers malt extract and hopped myself, and all have been awesome. 100% yummy beer. I've tried to nail down why these were so lousy. The worst batch I brewed with 2lbs of dextrose, and only fermented for two weeks. We could probably write that one off as cheap ingredients meets bad technique. But the other two were brewed with dry malt extract and fermented for 3-4 weeks. My best guess is that the kits were old. Something is obviously wrong. Under the same brewing/fermentation methods and using the exact same yeast my other batches have all been great. Anyway, I guess I'd suggest avoiding the hopped kits entirely. I certainly won't be buying them again. At the very least I would recommend using all malt extract and checking the dates on the cans. These kits are definitely more convenient, but cost more and taste a lot worse. To me an extra 45 minutes of effort is totally worth it.

Works great tastes great

Heute wird bei uns richtig gebraut, aber als Einstieg zu empfehlen.

Probably the most potent brew I have made

Todo perfecto, tal y como esperaba, salió una cerveza con buen sabor y cuerpo, recomendable 100% a todo el que piense en comprarla.

Have just tried the first of these after the recommended 12 weeks aging time in the bottle and they’re lovely, a real clean and crisp lager taste and a good head. Got impatient and tried one before the aging time was up and it wasn’t great, so definitely be patient and do as it says!

Buen sabor