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Steam Beer


karlos_1984

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I've had a can of Real Ale lying around for ages that I want to use up. Using the Coopers recipe spreadsheet I ended up picking the Steam Beer:

https://www.diybeer.com/au/recipe/steam-beer.html

I've got all listed ingredients and opted for the White Labs WLP810 liquid yeast.

I searched first but couldn't really find the answer to the following question(s).

A 2 litre boil with only 250g LDME and a 10 min hop addition of only 25g does not sound like enough to make a noticeable taste/aroma difference when added to a 23 litre batch. Would this recipe benefit of a sparge of the steeped grains and to make the boil volume up to something larger with more LDME, to make better utilisation of the hop addition? 

Also, there's no dry hop. Would a dry hop also be beneficial?

If PB2 would like to chime in with any suggestions that would be great. Or if any of you guys have followed this recipe, any feedback on how it turned out, or if you would make any changes to improve it, if you were to brew it again. Cheers.

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I do a lot of coopers recipes and find them all underhopped, I just don't get any flavour from their suggested amounts. I will use 75g hops as a minimum, some boiled, some dry.

If I was doing that recipe, I'd probably go the 25g for 20m, steep another 25g for 30min and then dry hop some. But I'd check my IBUs in the IanH sheet before I started, to check on my timings.

If you do up the hops that much another 500g of malt would probably keep it all in balance and just big everything up.

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I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this as well. To just use the suggested amounts in the recipes does sweet FA.

I did the session ale ages ago but threw more than double the suggested hops at it and it was good.

I don't want to make 23 ltrs of underwhelming and un-tasty beer

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I don't have the means to do large hop boils so have been fiddling around with the IanH spreadsheet a bit, detailed in this post. IanH actually has a comment in his spreadsheet in cell I26 saying the minimum recommended hop boil volume is 6L. A quick check of 25g Northern Brewer for 10 minutes in 2L adds 3.89 IBUs, where a 6L boil gives 7 IBUs. Those small boils seem a very inefficient way to use hops and the conclusion I reached in the post I linked was that, until I could get a larger boil setup, to just try to get the IBUs by changing the hopped extract can. This is where I'm running into more confusion: the Steam Beer recipe says it has 36 IBUs, including the 25g Northern Brewer boil, but according to Cooper's own website, the Real Ale can alone should be giving 41.4 IBUs in 23L ((560 x 1.7) / 23) before any bittering additions. 🤯

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3 minutes ago, Lab Rat said:

IanH sheet has Real ale listed as 30.4 IBU

Yeah but his calcs for IBU and EBC are wrong. As per Cooper's own FAQ, you have to multiply the can IBUs (560) by the weight of the can (1.7kg) and divide by the brew volume (23L). I've gone through and updated all the values from 1.25 to 1.7 in the cell equations.

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2 hours ago, Lab Rat said:

My opinion about hop amounts in the recipes, still stands. I was upping hops before I used the spreadsheet, and have been going on how the beer tastes.

Completely agree. Not to mention that hop flavour and aroma aren't quantified by a spreadsheet.

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The last couple of brews I have done, I've punched the numbers into ianh spreadsheet and also used the online recipe calculator on brewers friend website and neither of them give the same figures using the same ingredients. I don't know which to rely on. That being said I put this recipe into the spreadsheet and the numbers are different to what's listed on the diy website.

Im in 2 frames of mind about this. I kind of want to give the recipe the benefit of the doubt and just see if it turns out alright. But I don't usually brew 23 ltrs as I think it's too watered down.

On the other hand, my gut is telling me to up the boil volume, up the hop additions and make it to 21 ltrs. But that will likely make the beer something completely different, or it could be a cracking drop. Decisions....

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It wasn't very far into my burgeoning homebrew career that I learned that a hop steep AND dry hop are necessary for pale ale style beers. The hopped extract cans just don't bring enough on their own. With this recipe the 10 minute boil is likely more for flavour than the small amount of bittering it will add, and I think a dry hop of at least 25g would be suitable. I've never used Northern Brewer so am only basing this on experience with other aromatic hops.

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3 hours ago, karlos_1984 said:

The last couple of brews I have done, I've punched the numbers into ianh spreadsheet and also used the online recipe calculator on brewers friend website and neither of them give the same figures using the same ingredients. I don't know which to rely on. That being said I put this recipe into the spreadsheet and the numbers are different to what's listed on the diy website.

Yeah, I don't know where Coopers are getting some of their recipe numbers from. I did the Abbey Blonde (great, simple recipe, on of their best IMO) and the coopers ABV was waaaaaaaay off.

I brewed it as per recipe, minus the grain, which shouldn't affect ABV anyway, and Coopers have it at 6.5%. Just looking at the ingredients, I could tell it wouldn't get up there.

IanH had it predicted it at 5.2, which it was, going on my OG/FG. All the IanH numbers have been almost spot on. So I go with that. 

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16 hours ago, Lab Rat said:

Yeah, I don't know where Coopers are getting some of their recipe numbers from. I did the Abbey Blonde (great, simple recipe, on of their best IMO) and the coopers ABV was waaaaaaaay off.

I brewed it as per recipe, minus the grain, which shouldn't affect ABV anyway, and Coopers have it at 6.5%. Just looking at the ingredients, I could tell it wouldn't get up there.

IanH had it predicted it at 5.2, which it was, going on my OG/FG. All the IanH numbers have been almost spot on. So I go with that. 

I queried this once and was told that the ABV figures Coopers quote come from actual lab measurements.  Curious. 

 

On 2/25/2020 at 3:30 PM, Lab Rat said:

IanH sheet has Real ale listed as 30.4 IBU

Somewhere there is corrected data for the Coopers cans.  Several years ago when I used the IanH spreadsheet I had the correct figures.  I have no idea where I got them from though!

 

On 2/23/2020 at 4:49 PM, karlos_1984 said:

If PB2 would like to chime in with any suggestions that would be great.

I heard he had retired. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, BlackSands said:

I queried this once and was told that the ABV figures Coopers quote come from actual lab measurements.  Curious. 

Somewhere there is corrected data for the Coopers cans.  Several years ago when I used the IanH spreadsheet I had the correct figures.  I have no idea where I got them from though!

I think they need to start using a different lab...

The sheet is easy enough to update the formula on the kit page, but I made a copy and did this, and now most of my saved brews show out of style results for IBUs

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Thinking I might boil 6 ltrs with the whole kg of LDME and do a 25g addition at 10 mins, another 25g at FO then dry hop with another 25g. Might just make it up to 21 ltrs and see how it goes. I don't want 23 ltrs of weak flavoured beer as it'll never get drank.. 

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4 minutes ago, karlos_1984 said:

Thinking I might boil 6 ltrs with the whole kg of LDME and do a 25g addition at 10 mins, another 25g at FO then dry hop with another 25g. Might just make it up to 21 ltrs and see how it goes. I don't want 23 ltrs of weak flavoured beer as it'll never get drank.. 

Sounds spot on to me. Making me thirsty.

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On 2/28/2020 at 12:24 AM, karlos_1984 said:

make it 10 litre boil. Should get decent utilization with that sort of volume ....

Out of interest, when I was tinkering with boil volumes etc recently in Beersmith it became apparent that the utilisation started to decline when boil volumes dropped below 14-15 litres. Nothing too significant though, not until started to drop well below 10 litres and even then it was only 4 or 5 IBU's.  

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I did this brew a couple days ago. Cold Steeped overnight and sparged the grains into my pot and filled to 10 ltrs with 1kg LDME. 

25g of northern brewer at 10 mins and at FO. Whirlpool and sat for 20mins in ice bath. 

Made up to 21 ltrs.

Dunno what happened but OG was only 1039. Expected it to be about 1044 or so. 

Not sure how it'll turn out. Didn't realise the hops were 2018 stock. We'll see. 

We'll yeast is bubbling away nicely though

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Anyone else notice subtle errors and/or typos in the Coopers Recipes?

For example: Steam Beer

In the first section it says you supply 1 x 11.5g Saflager S-23 yeast.

Yet down the page a bit under ingredients it says 2 x 11.5g Saflager S-23 yeast and so two seems to be confirmed because in the mix section it says “sprinkle both sachets”.

The recipe spreadsheet V2.7 curtesy of shamus says 2 x Safbrew S-33 just to confuse further.

I am aware that different yeasts will alter the flavour profile so should I stick to the Coopers recipe with Saflager S-23 @ 12 – 15 C (Coopers say 18C) or go with Safbrew S-33 @ 15 – 20 C

WPL810 @ 15 – 18 C seems a better choice than S-33 based on flavour description and also as per @karlos_1984 post be interesting to hear how that choice turns out and tastes.

Cheers - AL

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i've noticed those sort of errors/typos before, they're actually quite common so it's best to use a bit of initiative.

I used WLP810 as it actually does suggest it as a good option at the start of the recipe when they talk it up.

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Yep Karlos, that is all we can do.  Am keen to give this one a go, let us know what you think of yours.  Do you have temp control? and what temp did you ferment at?

Might try the S-23 first and the WLP810 immediately after so I can compare the two.  Did see their alternative yeast so cross referenced it with Shamus SS and then saw it had a different one again.

Cheers - AL

Edited by iBooz2
Do you have temp control? and what temp did you ferment at?
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22 hours ago, iBooz2 said:

Yep Karlos, that is all we can do.  Am keen to give this one a go, let us know what you think of yours.  Do you have temp control? and what temp did you ferment at?

Might try the S-23 first and the WLP810 immediately after so I can compare the two.  Did see their alternative yeast so cross referenced it with Shamus SS and then saw it had a different one again.

Cheers - AL

Yep, definitely have temp controlled fridge. The brews been fermenting away at 18 degrees as suggested on the recipe. I was going to try 16 degrees but figured the beer requires the esters from the slightly higher temp. Just sampled some from the hydrometer and its tasting rather nice, hard to describe. But i may even forgo the dry hop (not that it's required by the recipe but just usually habit)

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Nice pick up @iBooz2.  I will amend the recipe spreadsheet. See 

https://community.diybeer.com/topic/13090-coopers-recipe-spreadsheet/page/4/?tab=comments#comment-205449

I have found similar errors within the Coopers Recipes.  Mine was probably a copy-paste issue.

It definitely looks to me like the correct yeast is Saflager S-23.  If fermenting this beer at 18°C I think one packet would be enough.  However, maybe two speeds up the process and creates more "Steam-like" flavours.

Hopefully @Coopers DIY Beer Team can amend the Steam Beer Recipe page.

Cheers Shamus

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