Coopers Stout - Ready For Secondary?

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ODDBALL

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Hi guys.

I have a Coopers Stout on which was put down on saturday Morning, it has been madly bubbling away since, it started bubbling about 5 hours after I pitched the yeast and the OG was 1032 at around 26C. Since then I have managed to drop the temperature down to around 20C most of the Week and tonight there is hardly any activity in the airlock and the gravity was taken at 1014.

The can of Coopers Stout was mixed with the Brewsier Ultra Brew sugar and 23 litres of water so I am expecting good things from this brew, I have heard it is hard to mess up which is why I tried it for my second brew.

Anyway my question is, if I take a reading tomorrow night and the gravity is still 1014 or similar should I transfer it to my freshly purchased 20 Litre cube or not? What do you guys suggest?

Any tips for the racking or anything I need to know?

Cheers. :party: :beer:
 
ODDBALL said:
Hi guys.

I have a Coopers Stout on which was put down on saturday Morning, it has been madly bubbling away since, it started bubbling about 5 hours after I pitched the yeast and the OG was 1032 at around 26C. Since then I have managed to drop the temperature down to around 20C most of the Week and tonight there is hardly any activity in the airlock and the gravity was taken at 1014.

The can of Coopers Stout was mixed with the Brewsier Ultra Brew sugar and 23 litres of water so I am expecting good things from this brew, I have heard it is hard to mess up which is why I tried it for my second brew.

Anyway my question is, if I take a reading tomorrow night and the gravity is still 1014 or similar should I transfer it to my freshly purchased 20 Litre cube or not? What do you guys suggest?

Any tips for the racking or anything I need to know?

Cheers. :party: :beer:
[post="56489"][/post]​

I've made a couple of these, they're quite easy you're right, probably my favourite kit to make.
1014 was what mine finished at too, both times. Why would you want to transfer it? If you get another reading the same why not just bottle it straight away?

The brew is a great, easy stout. Next time, only fill it to about 19.5 to 20L. It makes it so much better.
 
If you get the same reading 2-3 days in a row it's all good to transfer.

Which will give it more time to drop sediment out of suspension, therefore less in your bottles.

Is your cube tapped? If not, siphon the brew out otherwise if you just pour it out you'll put the sediment back through it.
 
I found that the stout has hardly any sediment in the bottle when compared to other brews.
I don't know why this is so, but you can usually drink it right down to the bottom of the bottle without ever getting that yeasty flavour and cloudy texture.
 
Well I took a reading tonight and it was 1014 again so I done the transfer to secondary into my cube, I will let you know how it drinks when the time comes but I am expecting good things from it.

Changing the subject I. I am sitting here typing this with a glass of the lager that I bottled a week ago today, it was the Coopers lager that comes with the kit. It is ok but needs a bit more time to settle down a bit, plenty of fizz and crystal clear compared to the stuff I seen my old man make in the 70's. :beerbang:

Cheers for all your guidance and help with my first two brews.
 
@oddball
So was that your first batch that you are drinking?
I have to say if your first batch is drinkable then you are way ahead of me. Mine was terrible not that I poured it out :chug:
Cheers,
Josh
 
Smeagol said:
I found that the stout has hardly any sediment in the bottle when compared to other brews.
I don't know why this is so, but you can usually drink it right down to the bottom of the bottle without ever getting that yeasty flavour and cloudy texture.
[post="56573"][/post]​

I have found that too Smeagol

Having just finished a bottle an hour ago i put the whole lot into the glass and while the flavour was slightly stronger it wasnt that pronounced yeasty taste. Although i did use a US-56 yeast for this brew which would be better than the coopers yeast supplied with the kit

Oddball, you will be happy with the result the stout is a joy to drink. Mine has only been bottled for 3 weeks and i've gone through nearly half the batch, although i will keep a few to guage how good it is later on. I made mine at 18Lt and put in an extra 250gm's of malt extract
 
I was thinking I would give it a week in secondary, just to see what happens and because I am in no big rush for it as I have 23 litres of lager to get through. Although I might just sneak a bottle or two next weekend. :)
 
A week? I have been leaving mine in the secondary for 4 weeks, lol. Hmm, wonder if there are really many extra benefits with racking for so long.. I am doing different types of beers though, so I dunno if that makes a difference.
 
I have now had my Coopers Stout in secondary a week tomorrow and have been burping it everyday after work by loosening the top of the cube slightly. Yesterday I noticed there was hardly any air built up to escape and today there was not even a hiss. At the start of the week in secondary the thing fizzed noticably when I loosened the top.
Does this mean that it will be ready for bottling on the weekend or should I do it sooner, I have read that it should not be left in the plastic cube for too long.
I am going to bulk prime this batch for the first time and was wondering how many grams to use per litre. I like my stout not too sweet but not dry if that makes sense and I intend to put a few bottles away for a few months to see how it ages. The rest will probably be gone within the month. :huh:
 
ODDBALL said:
I have now had my Coopers Stout in secondary a week tomorrow and have been burping it everyday after work by loosening the top of the cube slightly. Yesterday I noticed there was hardly any air built up to escape and today there was not even a hiss. At the start of the week in secondary the thing fizzed noticably when I loosened the top.
Does this mean that it will be ready for bottling on the weekend or should I do it sooner, I have read that it should not be left in the plastic cube for too long.
I am going to bulk prime this batch for the first time and was wondering how many grams to use per litre. I like my stout not too sweet but not dry if that makes sense and I intend to put a few bottles away for a few months to see how it ages. The rest will probably be gone within the month. :huh:
[post="57492"][/post]​

Oh! I forgot to ask earlier.

Should I use normal everyday household sugar for the priming or as I have read somewhere does brown sugar work better with a stout? Or would a specialist type sugar be the order of the day?

Cheers. :beerbang:
 
Sorry to be a pain guys but I am dithering over what to do with my brew.
On one hand I think I should bottle it now as it has stopped burping but on the other I think the whole point of secondary is to give it 2 weeks minimum???

Has it stopped burping because the activity has finally come to an end or could it be infected?

Another thing I was thinking about at work today was the quantity os sugar (or brown sugar) to use in bulk priming, I do not want a fizzy stout but I do like it a little bit sweet with a bit of a head.

Questions questions....One day I will be able to give back to this fforum but until then I am at your mercy...or that should read my brews are at your mercy! :party: :unsure:

Cheers. :D
 
If its stopped bubbling the chance of it being infected is like nil. Its just that the yeast have eaten nearly all the sugars in the wort and are slowing down ie not producing gas anymore. To check whether it is finished trust the hydrometer not the sound of the airlock. A good rule of thumb is measure the gravity on two consecutive days. If the readings are exactly the same, the rule of thumb is that it is safe to bottle. This is not always the case though ie with stuck fermentations

As its an ale secondary will still be useful but perhaps not as a major influence of the finished product unlike a lager or lighter beer. If your desperate to get the beer in the bottle, you could probably bottle it and avoid secondary or wait for it in secondary for a week.

For priming i would reccomend dextrose. From my experience it gives the best head in a beer. And no the priming will give no sweetness at all as the yeast remaining in the beer will eat it up. If you want sweetness you could add lactose a milk sugar which is non fermentable. I have no experience with lactose so i couldn't advise you as to to yay or nay. I have read that it is kind of over rated as a brew sugar.

For a lower carbonation, i would shoot for 120g for 23 l's. Others will have a personal preference in terms of carbonation.

Good luck

Will
 
Hi OB, you have asked that right when I have been looking into priming as well.

I have found a few bits via google, these 2: -

A Primer on Priming - by Mark Hibberd
Dave's Preferred Priming Procedure - by Dave Drapper, a follow up/expansion on the Primer on Priming above.

basically give it all away, after having a read of those you should be able to plug the numbers into the formula, crank the handle and spit out the quantity of priming sugar (or malt) you will need.

The original posting of the Primer on Priming is here at HDB. Those two authors are actually quoted in "Homebrewing Volume I" by Al Korzonas, so I'm assuming that the numbers and theory are pretty good.

HTH,
Cam
 
kungy said:
For priming i would reccomend dextrose. From my experience it gives the best head in a beer. And no the priming will give no sweetness at all as the yeast remaining in the beer will eat it up. If you want sweetness you could add lactose a milk sugar which is non fermentable. I have no experience with lactose so i couldn't advise you as to to yay or nay. I have read that it is kind of over rated as a brew sugar.

For a lower carbonation, i would shoot for 120g for 23 l's. Others will have a personal preference in terms of carbonation.

Good luck

Will
[post="57710"][/post]​

I'm pretty much with Kungy. I dont like the taste of lactose in a stout. I like 4 g/l dextrose for low carbonation in a stout. They tend to slowly ferment a little in the bottle and within 4 to 6 months you may find they are even overgassed for a stout. If you were dead set on drinking them all within a month I would go up to 5 or 5.5 g/l.
 
Second what GL says, probably for different reasons.

I'm a little the opposite. My experience with lactose is that it offers very little in terms of sweetness to the finished product. That said I've only used small amounts. My thinking would be that you'd have to use a fair amount to notice too much.

To get residual sweetness in a stout I've always stuck with higher mashing temps and/or larger amounts of medium and darker crystal malts or some Dark Munich Malt etc..

120g of Dextrose for a stout sounds about right (providing it's fully fermented out). You could possibly even prime less, down to about 100g. Stouts have bit of a habit of refermenting a little in warmer weather.

Anybody wanting to recreate the "Guinness Effect" on a small-time scale can try an old trick known as the "Pocket Beer Engine".

All it takes is a plastic syringe. Large as you can get. It does require a beer with lower carbonation levels though.

Pour about two-thirds of a glass, put the syringe into the beer and draw it up. Then just shoot the beer back into the glass in a quick motion. Until you get the hang of this it's a good idea to do it in the sink and not fill the glass all the way up, the beer can really rush up on the odd occasion. :blink:

The beer will cascade in the glass like a poor-man's nitro stout. Pushes Co2 out of solution making the stout less gassy. When it settles a little, top the glass up slowly.

Stout and English Ales present pretty well this way. You also get very nice lacing all the way down the glass.

Warren -
 

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