Toucan Stout Help

[Helmut]

Did a toucan brew on Saturday with the following:

1x Coopers Stout
1x Coopers Dark Ale
500g Coopers LDME
500g Raw Sugar
~100g of Cocoa Powder
2 small bars of 70% cocoa chocolate
Water to 25l
2 x kit yeast

OG: 1060
SG: 1016 (Thursday night)

Had a taste on brew day and again on Thursday. Tasting a bit overly bitter at the moment.
Is there anything I can do at this stage to mellow the bitterness and/or extend the flavours out a bit?

Can I do a late hop addition into the fermenter or maybe a steeping of some rolled oats to smooth it out?

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Leon

 

[pcmfisher]

I find it a bit hard to tell bitterness out of the fermenter.

I suggest to bottle when its ready and then age for a couple of months to smoothe out

 

[WarmBeer]

Did a toucan brew on Saturday with the following:

1x Coopers Stout
1x Coopers Dark Ale
500g Coopers LDME
500g Raw Sugar
~100g of Cocoa Powder
2 small bars of 70% cocoa chocolate
Water to 25l
2 x kit yeast

OG: 1060
SG: 1016 (Thursday night)

Had a taste on brew day and again on Thursday. Tasting a bit overly bitter at the moment.
Is there anything I can do at this stage to mellow the bitterness and/or extend the flavours out a bit?

Can I do a late hop addition into the fermenter or maybe a steeping of some rolled oats to smooth it out?

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Leon

IMHO, I think the 100g Cocoa powder, plus 2 bars of 70% cocoa chocolate will be contributing to the bitterness.

Try eating these bars, they are quite bitter by themselves, but offset by the sweetness contributed by sugar. During fermentation, the majority of that sugar will be converted into alcohol.

Now, try eating some of the cocoa powder. Whoa... bitter

You are adding these to a twocan recipe, which by itself contains approx twice the amount of bittering compounds that would be in a normal can brew. Remember, the 500g of raw sugar will leave very little residual sweetness, being mostly fermentable. The LDME is approximately 75% fermentable, so will leave some residual.

My suggestion would be to add 250 - 500g of Lactose (assuming you're not lactose intolerant). This will not be fermented out, and will leave a more full mouth feel, and percieved sweetness to offset the bitterness contributed by the alpha acids and cocoa.

Age will also help smooth it out a little, but if you're finding it "overly bitter" at the moment, it will still be "quite bitter" after 6 months.

 

[MitchDudarko]

+1 for the lactose.
+1 for the ageing.

 

[big78sam]

I have used dark brown sugar in a toucan and found it left lots of residual sweetness. It took a few months until it settled down and I was able to drink the thing. It left a real molasses flavour as well. I'm not sure about adding extra sugar once fermentation is almost complete but I figure if it's done in Belgian beers it's got to be OK. Happy for anyone to shoot me down on this though.

 

[Helmut]

Thanks for info guys. Is it ok to dump the lactose straight into the mix or should I try and dissolve it first.

Cheers,

Leon

 

[WarmBeer]

Yeah, you are probably best off disolving the lactose in 500ml - 1lt of pre-boiled, warm, water. Otherwise it will most likely just sink to the bottom.

Give it a little bit of a stir with a sanitised plastic or metal spoon (don't use wood), but not too aggressively, you don't want to oxidate the beer.

 

[Helmut]

Just got a hold of a 500g pack of Brewcraft Lactose (great working less than 500m from the LHBS). Pack says to add only 100g per 25l of beer. Never used the stuff before. If you guys reckon the whole bag, then the whole bag it will be.

Leon

 

[WarmBeer]

Hmmmm, don't have my recipe book here, and haven't used Lactose in a long time.

If you're at all worried, just put half in.

Another way to look at it:
- Take half a glass of the beer before adding lactose, keep it aside
- Add 1/3 the lactose, take another half-glass then do a side-by-side comparison
- If still too bitter for your liking, add another 1/3. Try another comparison
- Repeat if neccessary

Good luck

 

[dcx3]

Just a couple of points

Cocoa is wayyyy bitter..brown sugar is just normal sugar colored with molasses.

 

[Helmut]

Bottled this baby last night, smelled and tasted nice out of the fermenter. The only issue was the SG had increased to 1020. SG was 1016 last week when I stirred in 500g of Lactose in an effort to reduce the bitterness. I assume this is the Lactose that gave me this result? Have I created bottle bombs?

I saved the sample I took out from the pre-Lactose brew and added it to a sterile jar and left that on the bench. SG got down to 1012 yesterday. So a .008 increase in SG from 500g Lactose in 25L. Does this sound right?

Leon

 

[OzBeer_MD]

Bottled this baby last night, smelled and tasted nice out of the fermenter. The only issue was the SG had increased to 1020. SG was 1016 last week when I stirred in 500g of Lactose in an effort to reduce the bitterness. I assume this is the Lactose that gave me this result? Have I created bottle bombs?

I saved the sample I took out from the pre-Lactose brew and added it to a sterile jar and left that on the bench. SG got down to 1012 yesterday. So a .008 increase in SG from 500g Lactose in 25L. Does this sound right?

Leon

Lactose is non fermenting. It would be the reason that the Gravity went up and also a reason not to worry about bombs.

MD

 

[Helmut]

Cheers for that OzBeer, I thought it was the cause but was just suprised by the amount it went up in SG.

Can't wait to try this in a couple of weeks.