Can you modify the beer kit recipes?

[ChuckS]

Just got a new Cooper's Microbrew kit for Christmas and looking forward to making my first beer. I'm very new to this, but read the faq and some recent posts, watched the video and read the instruction booklet, but still confused on something.

 

Being my first beer, I want to keep it simple and hope to use the lager kit that came with the Micro-Brew kit. But at the same time, I'd like to kick it up a little bit and add perhaps a little more hop profile to the basic Cooper's Lager kit that the instructions and video outline.

 

Looking at some of the posts, this appears that this might be doable, but I'm a bit confused as to how. From what I've read elsewhere about brewing, normally you add the hops before, during and after the boil process. But with the Cooper's beer kits, it looks like they've simplified that step and packaged the end result into the beer kits, right? So at what point would you add additional ingredients, say some extra aromatic hops -- would this go directly in the fermenter, or do you need to are-invent the process somewhat?

 

Is it possible to use the beer kits, but modify the process a bit to add additional ingredients? Any suggestions or recipes on how to do this, or what hops might work best with the lager kit? If you add more hops, is it necessary to add anything else for the beer to turn out? If it helps, I also got the Irish Stout beer kit package (that came with dry malt and dextrose), but I'm willing to make a trip to the local homebrew store if I need something not on hand.

 

Thanks for your help and assistance! I've very much looking forward to brewing and experimenting with my new Micro-Brew kit and participating in these discussions.

 

Chuck

[PB2]

Welcome to the Brewers Guild, Chuck!

 

Yes, you can modify recipes as you like, this is only limited by your own imagination [w00t]

 

A number of recipe ideas sit in the How to Brew section

[CanaanP]

This is just my 2 cents - I'd say it's good to be curious and want to learn more but don't get too carried away trying to do everything on the first batch. You can get hops teabags from the home brew shop which are an easy easy way to add aroma hops to a simple kit recipe. But I wouldn't worry about doing long boils with bittering and flavouring hop additions this time around. Get the fundamentals of home brewing with a kit down first. Like hygiene and temperature "control" etc. Learn the whole home brewing process from mixing to fermentation and bottling then build on it from there. You can still get a great beer just by following the kit instructions. Craigtube on youtube has some cool vids that break things down nicely. Here's one with the Coopers starter pack: