Man, I started watching this and couldn't make it through 3 minutes before throwing a homebrew in the freezer. As I wait for it to cool, and watching the sheer enjoyment you are having on the video, I feel like a crackhead waiting for my fix.
Brewing with honey is a really good idea. I've heard of cooking with honey in place of sugar, but I would have never thought of it in beer. Thanks for the vids.
Craig, I enjoy your videos. I have been brewing, utilizing beer kits, over the past few years. I have met guys that grind their grains and have the "full blown" mega setup that I read about in magazines, but that's a bit too much for me. I like your simple approach with brewing, and I plan to try it. Everyone has an opinion about something, so don't worry about the occassional "critic." You obviously enjoy what you are doing and have some followers..... so enjoy it!! Take care & "Thank You"
Hi there Craig I already brewed the Coopers lager here in the UK sticking to the instructions and was really impressed with the result so much so that I've drank it all, but I must try it with honey next time, Just watching your vid I've been out today and bought the stout kit & some malt can't wait to try it, NICE ONE BUDDY...
Craig, you ROCK!! My friends and I are home brewing because your videos are so good, I hope that you know that you are improving Japan's beer one beer at a time!! Best, Johnny
I do agree with craig on the coopers beer kits they make a very nice brew and i have never had a problem with them, i have brewed the english bitter, the austrailian lager, the mexican lager and the irish stout and all of the beers taste very nice. I am a big fan of craig tube, its been a massive help in my own brewing. :)
Ive been watching all your videos craig.awesome job at making beer.And i find them very helpful.Im going tomorrow to buy some beer equipment and follow your technique.thanks again for sharing your knowledge and keep up with the great videos. (CHEERS)
Great reply i did some research and the word LAGER means to store as they used to store the lagers in ice houses to mature and the process is called lagering. :) Amazing how much there is to learn about brewing.
that stout looks gooooooood ! youve inspired me to try home brewing im currently saving up for a coopers kit that you reviewed mainly because you get all the bits and pieces but in the meantime ive ordered an irlock and im gonna give the inmate brew a go ..cant wait love your vids (all of them not just the home brewing ones)
I love your immediate reaction to the Irish Stout just before you comment on it..ClASSIC CRAIG MOMENT! I can't believe therefore why you didnt deviate from your usual draft for all thos years. Great to see you are trying bitters and stouts now. Personally I find the bitters and stout kits much more like quality store bought stuff just as you said about the stout. Its right you cannot tell its a homebrew..
I don't know why or how but a home brewed stout are the best. I found that the stouts that I have made are the best stouts I've had. I am a all grain brewer and enjoy brewing that way. If you brew from a kit that's great because it's about brewing your own brew. Kits can make great beer and you seem to have your system down. proust !!
Great job Craig. Nice to see you found some of the Australian Coopers in your end of the world. The lager Coopers i saw you using is the bottom end here and the Coopers Stout is the Premium stuff. As you said you omitted the malt and still came out ok. Those premium ones are a bit more mobney but the tin has hops and better malts etc in them to begin with. I spent 3 yrs in USA and now back in Oz and making Coopers IPA. Try it if you like IPA. Premium black tin like your Irish Stout. Its great.
Yeah its a great stout, adding some hops and liquorice with the dark spray malt makes it a very enjoyable drink if your looking to enhance an already great stout.
Hi Craig. I have to agree with you. The Dogbolters batch I just brewed is nothing less than phenomenal... Another way to increase alcohol (ABV) is to use less water, say 4 gallon batch instead of 5. ... I have not trying all grain yet, but it would be nice to have a side by side comparison. I am researching how to obtain a 50 pound bag of base malt from a wholesaler. Some day I would like to try it. But for now, for me, extracts are the way to go.
Could not agree with you more. My first ever homebrew, is the Thomas Coopers' 'Brewmaster" Irish Stout. I did dose it with a little brown sugar. I was pleasantly surprised when I tasted it. It's been 6 weeks in the bottle and keeps getting better. I bought a Deschutes Brewery Black Butte Porter to compare. Honestly, I think the Coopers is better. The kit brewing is great. It's only getting better. All grain has its place. But, there is nothing wrong with kit brewing.
Great videos Craig. I had a similar experience just recently . I brewed my first batch of what was supposed to be a rye pail ale. I didn't pay attention to my muslin bag when I was stepping my specialty grains and it burned to the bottom of my pot. So I just did without and added the LME and the hops and it still came out great!
Well craig i would have to agree with you 100% infact ive not seen a kit yet that takes longer than 3 weeks from start to finish. My lager tastes awesome it does suffer from chill haze which spoils the look of the lager a bit but it doesnt affect the taste.The only thing i may start doing is fultering my water or treating it as i can taste a sort of metalic after taste.
Hey Craig. Just plopped the Coopers Stout kit in the fermenter an hour ago (with the dry malt). OG is 1.049, so should be a potent brew when it's done. If the final product tastes anywheres near as good as my "flat Hydrometer" tasting, it should be incredible!!! Very complex taste.
Not to worry after all....Final gravity 1.010 with nary a bubble in the airlock. Just bottled today, final "flat" tasting was just awesome. Can't wait for this puppy to be ready to drink.
Craig Your the best ive seen all your videos your the reason i started brewing now o love it so much. I find the coopers lager is the best to experiment with.
Thank you! I brewed the Irish Stout this past Sunday. We added 150g of dextrose and 150g of raw sugar. Also, 500g dried malt extract was added, so we are hoping for the best!
they should probably be sponsoring you, Craig! I wonder how many hundreds (thousands?) of kits peole have bought and breweed after watching your videos!
Well ive done a few coopers kits and all ferment vigorously and fast too. The coopers stout and dark ale ferments so vigorously infact that i under fill my fermenter to combat overflow. There are a few videos on youtube with coopers stout overflowing the fermentation bucket.
The greatest Trolling in the history of mankind would be to show a video of this guy drinking beer in third world countries where water is scarce. :) I've never seen a man enjoy a beverage so much in my life. :D
Hot Oxyclean followed by a StarSan rinse is good for cleaning kegs and beer lines. Works everytime. Kegging is also superior to bottling but until you get a kegerator bottling is the way to go. Don't clean the bottles with dish soap, use Oxyclean ;)
yeah, that Stout looked like it poured pretty good. I did a Brewer's Best Irish Stout from their kits & my friend & I both thought it tasted as good if not better than a fresh poured Guinness. My next brew will be a light honey brew or an Ale.
The yeast is a big factor, the stuff they include in the kit meaans it won't taste like a german wheat beer unless you change the yeast...There are several liquid ones, or Safbrew WB-06 works quite well and is easy to use. The coopers yeast works great for a lot of beers but I wouldn't use it for a wheat beer - where most of the flavour comes from a specific type of yeast
Just brewed the Irish Stout using 1kg of extra dark DME, 500grm of Pontefract cake ( small liquorice tabs ) and a strong ale yeast that's good for Stouts and porters... Good video BTW......
Wow, Craig. This motivated me to go out and get that Cooper's Irish Stout. Can't wait to enjoy it myself! Did you age some of these for a few weeks? Big difference? Thanks again for the vids. James
Awesome vid ! watched it on tue. ran out bought a coopers Irish stout kit on wed and brewed it up wed night , my first time brewing ! keep the great vids coming Craig !
It's not that you can't brew decent beer from a kit, it's just that you can make excellent beer, with more control and make it taste exactly how you want it, by using more detailed methods. You don't have to gamble and guess if it's going to be good or not.
Nice to see that the stout was to your liking. One more week to my first batch of Coopers!!! So...for my next Coopers batch--do you recommend the ESB or the Stout? I'm waffling between those two and the IPA kit.
and besides you can wash your glass in a autoclave and you won't get any head retention with a extract as the malt has already been through one heat process then it goes through heating again when we brew it at home all the proteins fall out of the beer...as you can see Craig Head on that Stout fell out fast, the glass must have been chilled when he started
Great videos Craig...esp the do it yourself 4-parter..I'm from Ireland an I'm trying to get an Irish bar open in Croatia. I was contemplating having a home brew stout in the bar but I've never done it before, you've given me some confidence. Do you have any suggestions/advice or a website with more information? Thanks.
@rockr01 I wash my glasses/jugs with water after each use usually. If they need clean after a session you can use a small amount of your sanitizer in water. I always keep my glasses and jugs in the fridge. Keep them chilled helps alot.
I've just got my first brew barrelled, a Woodfordes Wherry Ale. Have you ever made this? Me and my friend think you and your videos are awesome. Take it easy man, keep brewing! :)
@CraigTube It's the bus station in my local town, the council are wanting to demolish it but I have always thought it was really cool, retro etc. I just got back from a holiday in Malta and the Wherry Ale is sat happily in its pressure barrel. I watched about your mall tunnel reverb bit and was quite sad that it didn't work at the time :( I thought that your music gear was all tooooo awesome, and I really enjoy listening to your music. take care
Try a different yeast strain and diuble sanitize your bottles. My local brew on premise does 5 cases at a time. Craig makes great video and great beer. Dry hop and do a secondary.
hi Craig english viewer here, i recently took up home-brewing and i find your videos very useful, for my next lager iv been thinking about using honey thanks to you so i have a few questions, firstly what type of honey do use? does it have to be specific? how much honey? and lastly do i need to add some sugar still or is it fine with just the glucose from the honey? thanks and thanks for the videos!
Just an interesting thought and a question. You say one can use two cans of malt extract in one batch. What if you use two DIFFERENT cans..? Should be a very interesting, even unique result I think! If you find this attracting, please make a video of you making a brew this way. Would love to see it! =) Cheers and beers!
I've tasted other peoples microbrews before and they were terrible. After seeing your Coopers lager video I decided to have a go myself. Result = Excellent!!! Not sure what others are doing wrong. This was my first homebrew and it was easy and tasted great! Does the coopers stout taste anything like guinness? Cheers!
hi craig , just wondering , how do you wash your glasses if you dont use dish soap ?? and if you already have done what do you use to wash of the enzyme you talk about, i seem to recall you mentioning salt in one of your videos. have noticed my 2 brews so far have lost their heads quickly and one its carbonation, but it was only a week and a half bottle conditioned. cheers Matt
Craig you've got me fired up man!!!! I bought a coopers original stout and 1# of briess light DME, and 1# of briess dark DME (almost one kilo total of DME). I know you brewed a different coopers stout, but how do you think it will come out? It will be 1 week in the fermenter this Saturday should I leave it for 2 weeks? Please respond I'm dying to here what you think, you are the man especially when it comes to super coopers!!! Thanks
second bottle was a bit better, and actually released more carbonation as it got warmer (I had stuck the bottle in the fridge for a couple of hours). I'll try one straight from the box...but other than that, I guess I should just be patient!!! Thanks Craig--you da man, eh?
Hey Craig: just cracked my first bottle from the Coopers homebrew kit. Tasted great (actually, really,really great), but it was basically flat (little bubbles visible for a while, but no head). This was 13 days after bottling, so I kind of jumped the gun a little. what do you think? give it a few more days?
@CraigTube Love your videos!!! Best homebrew videos I've found! *Ive got the same coopers kit you have - cant rave about it any more its a fantastic little kit!!!
I just ordered 7 lbs. of Breiss Pale Malt Extract and 4 Ounces of Crystal Hops from Mainbrew and I don't think I should have got Crystal Hops because they said it's more of a finishing Hops.
How long has the Honey Brew bottled? You posted the Brewing Video on Sept. 11. You mention adding "sugar" to increase alcohol but that is very vague. There are many types of "sugar" some of which can be corn or cane sugar, honey, and as you said, more liquid or dry malt extract where the yeast converts the carbohydrates to alcohol. For those that just want more alcohol, too much plain sugar can turn a batch sour/cidery. Extra Malt will increase flavor and alcohol with a more little added cost.
Hay m8,, Don't forget I'll be trying the stout but with the addition of coopers light liquid malt extract, I'll let you know how it turns out.,, just did the coopers wheat beer with weat beer dry malt,, yummy!!
hey Craig, my dad is a massive Guinness drinker and i was wondering how the coppers Irish stout would hold up to it? and great video like always, thanks, Alan.
Great vid craig. Im looking at brewing the same stout but will use 2 cans. My question is should I use 2 yeast packets or only one. I will probably usensome addtional honey for flavour. Keep up the great vids buddy, love ur work
Craig and all the lads doing the coopers stout.. Try Chocolate MAlt..It's a Darker malt.. You'll get an even smoother head and a smoother Taste.. Keep up the brewing vids Craig
Please excuse my ignorance, as I am only recently getting into home brewing. If I were to buy a Coopers Home Brewing Kit, would I still be able to use Festa Brew Oatmeal Stout with it? Thank you!
I think you could have just substituted some amount of molasses in a pinch, or at least dark brown sugar. Light brown sugar might me too much cane, and too little molasses. Excellent videos though, I just recently got started into home-brewing myself. First batch of pale ale should be done by next weekend!
Ahh another passionate home brewer!! Have you tried Coopers Real Ale? A slightly more deep amber beer which beautiful malt taste! Very drinkable!! If you like Coopers, you REALLY have to try the "Black Rock" kits from New Zealand... Unbelievable!!! Sorry Coopers... Cheers!!!
@CraigTube @CraigTube I bought it from Wilkinsons in the UK, I've already fermented it and its now conditioning in a pressure barrel. It looks really nice so far. Woodforde's Norfolk Ales Real Ale Kit 3kg (I can't link it due to youtube's policy i think) It's a 3KG kit (sugar etc is already in the two cans), I hope you can get it in the US! Once its ready I'll do a video :)
Craig i joined a forum and they all go on about leaving beer to mature for months. I have been bottle conditioning my first brew which is a lager. It has had 4 days feremnting and it has had 2 weeks in the bottles. I tried one last night after chilling it and it tasted amazing. What is your view on how long to condition your brews?
Hi Craig, Your vids are realy helpfull but i got a question,You always have a beer in your hand but never seem that intoxicated(or pissed as us australians say) why is that?
The last minute comments were great dude! I steeped my grains to make chocolate stout but it was because of cost. I made 5 gallons for less than $23.00!
ive never had a stout and i really wanna try one. i think im gonna try a guinness. is there any other you would recomend? i hear murphys is also a good stout
Hi there duwbryd if you are looking for a beer with wallop i can recommend breferm diablo if you can get it in the states. It is a belgian beer that finishes at around 7.5%
Hey Craig, are you able to find Southern Tier Brewing Company beer where you live? I know that we ship it to Canada, just not sure. I'm a brewer there and would love to know what you think!
I brewd coopers wheat beer and it turned out quite awful. No wheat beer notes what so ever. It was quite cidery and bodyless, very similar to clear water. What would make this kit to work? I added just about 1kg of sugar and fermented it fo 7-8 days at 22C ,then bottled and conditioned in cellar for a month.
You can turn the coopers original stout out very good aswell. Here is my recipe which turned out fantastic (only has a few bottles left )= . Everyone are free to try it out. 1 can of coopers original stout with the yeast that comes by. 1 KG of dextrose. 1 cup of honey. The OG was somewhere around 1050+ The FG became 1004 which is my lowest as of yet. As its a rather high % i thought i would taste the alcohol but nope. Afterall its a perfect christmas beer =) Enjoy
that was a great video about you making honey beer, me and my dad were wondering how to do it and youve just confirmed how to do it. where in new zealand and where going to try it with coopers stout, let you know how it goes
Hey nice vids thanks for the info just started brewing my own for the frist time hopefully it turns out ok :) p.s ya save a shit load of money tooo hahahaha.
Hay Craig love your vids my favorite is 'evening with craig' the one with your neighbors and you sing 'Daniel' in it .... I think you might have that dish detergent info. switched around ... it is you use soap not dishwashing detergent. Sodium sulfate & sodium silicate are sheeting agents in dishwasher detergent. soap is just soap
