'Winter Ale' using Coopers Dark

[cleagarr]

Hi chaps,

I have a Coopers Dark Ale kit and 1 kg of Dark spraymalt. I'd like to make strong wintery ale to bottle now and keep til the colder months (ha!).

Is this possible with this kit? Any suggestions how to achieve it? I'm not massively into cinnamon etc as tastes in beer. Rather I prefer ales such as Old Peculiar.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Ditch]

Cleagarr; Just wondering what might happen if ye upped the amount of dry malt and slung some of the darker sugars in there?

Purely speculation. I don't know what ye'd personally Want from a " Winter Ale ". But, that's where I think I'd start

Bugger is, of course; Ye have to wait six months to see if ye got it just right, or not

[Simon7]

I tinkered with kits, trying to up the ABV on the cheap by using granulated demerera sugar along with 1kg DME, I reckon 100-200g should give you a 'Winter Warmer' type ale using the Coopers Dark.

And as you're bottling you can crack one open after a few weeks, if it's not what you're looking for then it's back to the drawing board. You've got plenty of time to perfect your recipe between now and Christmas!

[danbrew]

It's a fairly high percentage of crystal malt that gives theakstons it's taste and iirc there are late/ dry hops in there too. Maybe try steep a couple of hundred grams of crystal and play around with traditional aroma hops?

[danbrew]

If you go on the aussiehomebrew forum and locate the beerkit tinkering spreadsheet designed by ianh then it will help you get a lot closer to this...

2kg of light dried malt extract would be better so it doesn't go too dark. About 100g of Crystal and 50g Chocolate and a hop tea of about 10g goldings I'd say. That will get you to about 5.8% which is more winter warmer. Persoanlly I would avoid sugar in this type of beer as you need the body/ mouthfeel to carry the strength.

[Morkebla]

I tinkered with kits, trying to up the ABV on the cheap by using granulated demerera sugar along with 1kg DME, I reckon 100-200g should give you a 'Winter Warmer' type ale using the Coopers Dark.

I made a Coopers Dark ale to this recipe 2 months ago, with 1kg Dark Sprymalt and 200g of Demerera. Its nice, but doesnt taste anything like a winter ale. You may need to add some steeped malt etc.

[cleagarr]

Thanks for the replies.

Without wishing to spend any more money on this (the wife needs convincing it will all work and be cheap etc!!) a mate is going to give me some chocolate crushed malt (500g bag) so I might try adding that? Will it affect the flavour much? How does adding crushed malt change the basic brewing process (I am a beginner, having bottled my first batch of Coopers APA t'other day) of this kit?