Adding Grain Post Fermentation

[cheeser]

I brewed a chocolate, milk stout (may add cold water extracted ground coffee bean as well) 4 days agos and fermentation is going well. The beer is really shaping up although i don't think i added enough roasted malts. The wort is a light chocolatey brown and the dark malt tastes don't seem as prominent as they should be. I used 200g of Roasted Barley and 200g of black patent malt. From glancing over other recipes, this seemed like it would do the trick. I suspect the reasons why it hasn't worked is because the dark grains were over a year old and that the 250g of cocoa have overpowered the colour and taste.

My question is, can I add more black patent malt to the primary? I know simply steeping the grains (in a bag) into the primary may cause a contamination so I'm thinking of boiling the grain in some water then adding this water along with the grain into primary. what do you guys think? Also, I've heard of a lot of problems with the cocoa dropping out into sedimentation resulting in little chocolate taste at the end. What else could be added to solve this problem? I have looked for chocolate essence but could not find any.

I look forward to your replies,
thanks in advanced

cheeser

 

[malt_shovel]

I brewed a chocolate, milk stout (may add cold water extracted ground coffee bean as well) 4 days agos and fermentation is going well. The beer is really shaping up although i don't think i added enough roasted malts. The wort is a light chocolatey brown and the dark malt tastes don't seem as prominent as they should be. I used 200g of Roasted Barley and 200g of black patent malt. From glancing over other recipes, this seemed like it would do the trick. I suspect the reasons why it hasn't worked is because the dark grains were over a year old and that the 250g of cocoa have overpowered the colour and taste.

My question is, can I add more black patent malt to the primary? I know simply steeping the grains (in a bag) into the primary may cause a contamination so I'm thinking of boiling the grain in some water then adding this water along with the grain into primary. what do you guys think? Also, I've heard of a lot of problems with the cocoa dropping out into sedimentation resulting in little chocolate taste at the end. What else could be added to solve this problem? I have looked for chocolate essence but could not find any.

I look forward to your replies,
thanks in advanced

cheeser

Tasting as the beer is fermenting is a good idea to see how things change. Adding / changing things before the beer is finished fermenting and even conditioning / maturing is not a good idea. You are better off leaving it to go until it is ready and then making adjustments to the next brew as you will have a much better idea of what needs doing. At the moment, it is too early to make a judgement.

Cheers
:beer:

 

[Charst]

I agree with malt shovel, I once tried to add steeped grain to a brew and ended up infecting it. taste and decide once you hit terminal and if you really think it needs it to be at all decent, then id say steep, then remove bag and boil before adding, if your a bulk primer add it that way, but the beers so green even after 2 weeks in the fermentor it can be hard to tell properly compared to the final brew.

 

[CONNOR BREWARE]

I agree with malt shovel, I once tried to add steeped grain to a brew and ended up infecting it. taste and decide once you hit terminal and if you really think it needs it to be at all decent, then id say steep, then remove bag and boil before adding, if your a bulk primer add it that way, but the beers so green even after 2 weeks in the fermentor it can be hard to tell properly compared to the final brew.

So this would be like bulk priming with fresh wort, interesting!

 

[manticle]

If you do it properly there should be no issue - steep the grain, rinse the grain, discard and boil properly (10 minute rolling boil at a minimum).

Don't add the grain itself and don't boil the grain itself. However allowing it to ferment out and having a taste before doing anything is good advice.

If you add, even though it's a spec malt with not much to add in the way of sugar, check the gravity, leave it a few days and double check again. This will have the advantage of allowing the flavours to integrate and if you did it with something like a crystal grain instead of black, you would be adding some sugar back in which would need to ferment out again.

@Duke of Paddy - priming with fresh wort is called krausening but black malt would be pretty useless for it.

 

[MattC]

I agree with the opinions above, the more you stuff around with fermenting beer the higher your probability of infection and you shouldnt judge the true character of the beer until fermentation and conditioning is complete.

However if its looking more like an English Brown and less like a Stout and your not real keen to leave it as is and it is still fermenting you could steep say another 200g of roast barley in about a litre of 70 C water for 30 min, then strain and boil for 10-15 min to sanitise, let cool and add to fermenter. This will slightly dilute the strength of your batch however, so to compensate this you could add about 200g of sugar, I would avoid LDM at this late stage of fermentation.

I have not tried this, but simply suggesting that it is a possilbilty to help your predicament.

Cheers

 

[[email protected]]

I have corrected colour in a stout by making an addition to the primary and it worked fine.

The technique I used was the cold step method (this can be used for the coffee addition as well) as I didn't necessarily want to add any additional roastiness/astringency.

I basically took about 250g of black patent/roast barley (put them in the blender/coffeee grinder) and cold steeped in a plunger overnight, plunged, boiled for 15 minutes, cooled and added to the fermenter (during primary to consume any oxygen). Worked a treat.


Google "George Fix cold steeping" and you should get some good info.

 

[cheeser]

I appreciate the replies guys. I'll leave it for a few more days, see how it goes and if it's still bugging me I might try one of the suggestions out.

 

[bcp]

Agree with Manticle. For high gravity beers it's quite common to add sugars later, such as candi sugar, because you don't want the yeast to start on that.

Yes, there's a risk of infection every time you touch the fermentor, but hey, that's brewing. Use the same precautions at every step. As the yeast takes hold of your beer, it produces alcohol to ward off competitors and tends to out-compete most things. If you think your beer needs it, go for it.

Can't comment on whether it would tend to drop out into the yeast cake before it's absorbed. I'd give it a decent but gentle stir without allowing it to become oxygenated and promoting staleness later.