Coopers Stout - Sugars And Yeast

[Dribs]

G'day chaps.

I'm looking at brewing my first Coopers stout tin and I've got a rough idea of what I want, just nutting out the finer points. Figured I'd ask you lot rather than bugging manticle on email about every detail.

So far I've got:
Coopers stout tin.
1kg of DDME
Saflager S-23 yeast (I've read many comments saying lager yeast works great in stouts)
Multon's Gold (I was thinking of maybe using this with the S-23 to speed up fermentation)

Few n00b questions about what else it needs and can do:
Would you recommend brown or raw sugar, and how much if I'm aiming for around 8%acl?
18 or 20 litres?
With just the S-23, what is it's max alcohol threshold?
Should I prime the bottle with just 1 carb drop? Or maybe prime with some of the DDME to prevent watery mouth feel?
Does pure cocoa powder ferment?
At around 14 degrees, is 2 week in the fermenter ideal? Will the S-23 deal with 1kg of malt extract ok?

That's probably enough questions for now. Cheers!

 

[petesbrew]

G'day chaps.

I'm looking at brewing my first Coopers stout tin and I've got a rough idea of what I want, just nutting out the finer points. Figured I'd ask you lot rather than bugging manticle on email about every detail.

So far I've got:
Coopers stout tin.
1kg of DDME
Saflager S-23 yeast (I've read many comments saying lager yeast works great in stouts)
Multon's Gold (I was thinking of maybe using this with the S-23 to speed up fermentation)

Few n00b questions about what else it needs and can do:
Would you recommend brown or raw sugar, and how much if I'm aiming for around 8%acl?
18 or 20 litres?
With just the S-23, what is it's max alcohol threshold?
Should I prime the bottle with just 1 carb drop? Or maybe prime with some of the DDME to prevent watery mouth feel?
Does pure cocoa powder ferment?
At around 14 degrees, is 2 week in the fermenter ideal? Will the S-23 deal with 1kg of malt extract ok?

That's probably enough questions for now. Cheers!

I've never done stout with lager yeast so can't comment.
For 8% I'd fill it to 18L - or consider adding a 2nd tin of dark ale (toucan method = extra bitterness) as well as the DDME and fill to 23L
Re: cocoa powder, consider getting 150-200g choc grain from LHBS, and look in the articles above at steeping.
If you have a large coffee plunger & a kitchen strainer then you're set to go.
Hopswise - either EK Goldings, Styrian Goldings or Fuggles - 15g in the fermenter would work well.

my 2c.
Mmm, Stout
Pete

 

[Dribs]

Right, 18 litres it is.

I'm keeping this relatively cheap and the brew shop near me only has the basics of the basic stuff (ie: no fancy malts).

Was thinking of not adding extra hops to get let the full dark malt flavour shine. Is this a good idea?

 

[felten]

Using simple sugar instead of DME won't make a negative impact on the beer, see here

If you can't keep the temp stable at around 10c, then I would just stick with the ale yeast. The lager yeasts are best fermented cold, where an ale yeast won't be active. Pitching the yeast cold also means you need to add more yeast for a proper pitching rate, if you know the OG and volume amounts you can plug them in here and it will tell you how many packets you need for an ale or a lager yeast.

 

[Dribs]

So, basically the bottle priming part has little effect on taste and body of the beer. Excellent!

Also, I've found the cocoa thread in the recipes section. Fun times ahead!

 

[albertC]

Lager yeast is used to ferment beer at cold temperatures and it's actually the secret behind the lager beer which was discovered by Germans where in fact, this yeast is found to be originated from Argentina. For ages, scientists have been attempting to determine where lager yeast originated from prior to being used by Germany during the Sixteenth century to brew lager-style beers. The beer with German roots uses a yeast that comes from Argentina. I actually found it here: Origins of lager yeast traced to Argentina. For the past five years, according to the BBC, a group of researchers have been looking for the origins of a strain of yeast commonly called lager yeast until they have found out that it's originally came from Argentina.