Urgent Advice Sought....

[Pandreas]

I have a toucan Coopers stout that I want to bottle tonight....

Recipe -

1 can coopers stout
1 can coopers dark ale
400g brown sugar
licorice extract
25g fuggles dry hop.
US56 yeast

OG 1052. This brew has been fermenting at 18-20 degrees for 17 days. SG reading was stable at 1016 for a few days in a row. I left the fermenter outside for a couple of days to drop the temperature and help to clear the beer.

Took the fermenter back in last night and have just set 27 longneck bottles to soak in bleach in preparation for bottling tonight.

Took a SG reading.... the brew has dropped a couple more points to 1014. I wasn't expecting it to go below 1016, I certainly wouldn't see it going further than 1014, any thoughts on this? I hate to bottle without a stable SG reading.

Also, a taste test shows the wort is still a little fizzy.... almost right for a stout actually but a little underdone. If I bottle tonight, how much sugar do I add?? I hate the thought of overcarbonated stout!!
I was going to prime with half the amount of sugar I would usually, now I think I should use less sugar than this. Perhaps I shouldn't prime the bottles at all... maybe I should use black jelly beans?

Please help!

 

[Duff]

Should be fine, at 1.014 from 1.052 that's around 75% attenuation. As far as sugar, everyone may have differing thoughts on priming, but for my stouts around 5gm/L would be nice.

Cheers.

 

[Adamt]

1014 seems about right.

Carbon Dioxide does dissolve in water (and beer) to some extent, depending on temperature. Priming calculators on brewing software does assume the beer is saturated with CO2 at bottling temperature. It seems a bit fizzier than it really is because you are jiggling it around and it's knocking CO2 out of solution.

Don't use jelly beans unless you know how much sugar is in them.

Cheers

 

[Weizguy]

Black jelly beans? Puh-lease!
I did that once, and that was once too often.

Maybe the licorice in the brew might cover it, but I found the black jelly beans to ruin the flavour of the beer.

Just prime with a low dose, say 50%, of the usual sugar. It will suit the style better than any carbonic bite due to high carbonation. You can always use a syringe to withdraw/ return a small amount of beer to/from the glass to boost the head.

Don't leave the bottles in the bleach too long or you will need to rinse that bleach out very thoroughly. Issues caused by bleach include chlorophenols in the beer (tastes similar to a wild yeast contamination), and etching of the bottles, as well as killing off the remaining yeast in the bottle (flat beer).

There are brewers on this forum who will bottle their beer (especially stronger ones) without extra sugar to carbonate. You may have done well to bottle this late last week, and allow the remaining sugars to carbonate the brew. However that technique can be difficult to judge at what stage to bottle the beer.

If you use jelly beans, only do a few bottles. You will prob regret if you do all of them.

Seth

 

[brettprevans]

sounds like a nice little receipe there.
I bottle my stouts with 50% normal sugar. maybe a little less if they are really big.
I find that my stable FG will sometimes change with temp variations, so you should be right.
I agree with the others, dont bottle/prime all your bottles with jelly beans. do a few and see what you think. I personally dont like the flavour it leaves.

 

[ironxmortlock]

I read elsewhere that chiko babies are good to use in stouts. Haven't tried it myself but I plan to give it a go with a couple of bottle of my next toucan. Two per tallie.

 

[Tyred]

I did a twocan coopers recently (stout & real ale) with 500g malt extract with US-56. It started at 1.052 and ended at 1.014.

Sounds fine. I noticed that the sample I took when checking the final reading was fizzy as well. Tasted very nice but would have been be better cold.

 

[Pandreas]

Thanks everyone for your quick replies! Sometimes I like to have a bit of advice and confirmation that things are OK before going ahead.

I bottled the stout yesterday afternoon using half the amount of white sugar I would use normally. AdamT, thanks for giving me the confidence to prime the bottles as I intended. (Heres hoping for low carbonation and a thick, foamy head!!)

I didn't use any jelly beans or lollies although would still try a longy or two one day for the fun of it.....

Thanks again for the replies!

 

[petesbrew]

Thanks everyone for your quick replies! Sometimes I like to have a bit of advice and confirmation that things are OK before going ahead.

I bottled the stout yesterday afternoon using half the amount of white sugar I would use normally. AdamT, thanks for giving me the confidence to prime the bottles as I intended. (Heres hoping for low carbonation and a thick, foamy head!!)

I didn't use any jelly beans or lollies although would still try a longy or two one day for the fun of it.....

Thanks again for the replies!

Just don't try the natural confectionary company jelly beans - no added suger equals very flat beer and bits of floaties in the 10 stubbies I did.