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TOUCAN STOUT QUERY


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Hi All,

I'm a complete NOOB to this forum and to brewing... have done a couple of extract brews which were OK - not great, not sh*t, just OK... Anyway, am thinking of doing a Toucan Stout next and just wondering if I replaced the Dextrose with BE2 what difference would this make to the final beer? Or should I just stick to the Dextrose?

Cheers...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Missus did me a favour and bought a few tins on special at Big W. Thought about doing a toucan stout for years so thought why not and I have some leftover CCA trub in the fridge too. 2 cans of stout, 2 cans of dark ale and 2kgs of dextrose.  Made both up this afternoon. Made one to 23 litres with the CCA yeast. Got adventurous with the second one. Decided to go 16 litres only with a 15gm S-04 packet and one of the kit yeasts as well. All the numbers look fine for an Imperial Stout bar the Bitterness at 100 IBU is a touch high. Should go about 10% ABV in the bottle.

Both in my fridge. CCA at 18c with the probe attached. S-04 down the bottom without probe which is about 2c higher in temp which is where S-04 likes it anyway. 

Will be interested to see how they both turn out.

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My Toucan Stout has now been fermenting for 2 weeks - FG 1.013 (started at 1.061). I ended up using BE2 rather than Dextrose (cuz that's what I had), and both kit yeasts.

It smells great, but tastes quite bitter - more bitter than I would like. I'm hoping a few months in the bottle will help this...?

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Had this Toucan cold crashing for a few days - thought I may as well as I haven't had time to bottle it yet.

When I do bottle (probably tomorrow), given it's a stout, would I be better off using just one carbonation drop per bottle rather than 2 (750ml bottles)?

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21 minutes ago, Gazzala said:

Had this Toucan cold crashing for a few days - thought I may as well as I haven't had time to bottle it yet.

When I do bottle (probably tomorrow), given it's a stout, would I be better off using just one carbonation drop per bottle rather than 2 (750ml bottles)?

Yeah I would. That's the style. I usually bottle to a 3/4 of normal carb level for a stout but that's more my liking rather than the style.

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29 minutes ago, Gazzala said:

would I be better off using just one carbonation drop per bottle rather than 2 (750ml bottles)?

Absolutely.  I did the Coopers Russian Imperial Stout (Three-can) a few months ago.  I carbed most of them at half the normal rate and some bottles at the normal rate.  The one normal rate bottle I have opened so far was over-carbonated.  The couple of half rate ones have been fine.

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3 hours ago, Gazzala said:

Cheers fellas - 1 it is then.

The only thing I would suggest if you want to have a Stout in the next few weeks... you would add the standard 2 carb drops.... just a thought?

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On 5/13/2019 at 10:20 PM, Greeny1525229549 said:

Missus did me a favour and bought a few tins on special at Big W. Thought about doing a toucan stout for years so thought why not and I have some leftover CCA trub in the fridge too. 2 cans of stout, 2 cans of dark ale and 2kgs of dextrose.  Made both up this afternoon. Made one to 23 litres with the CCA yeast. Got adventurous with the second one. Decided to go 16 litres only with a 15gm S-04 packet and one of the kit yeasts as well. All the numbers look fine for an Imperial Stout bar the Bitterness at 100 IBU is a touch high. Should go about 10% ABV in the bottle.

Both in my fridge. CCA at 18c with the probe attached. S-04 down the bottom without probe which is about 2c higher in temp which is where S-04 likes it anyway. 

Will be interested to see how they both turn out.

9 Days in on these batches and kind of perplexed with the situation I find myself in. The 16L batch is done. S-04 and the kit yeast took it down from 1075 to 1008 in 7 days. Even though it had a kilo of dextrose in it still surprised to see it go that low. 

The 23L batch on the other hand with the CCA yeast has s*it itself at 1030 after starting at 1055. Extremely confused as to why. There was a week old slurry pitched (probably 250ml of compacted slurry) and it took off in about 2 hours. Should have been enough yeast cells for almost two batches. Would have bet my house that it would have finished quicker than the other let alone stall out which has never ever happened to me with the CCA yeast. It has gone slow after an underpitch but never stopped.

Anyway will give it a stir in the morning to see if that will get it going and if not will bottle the 16L batch in a few days and pitch the whole slurry of that one to finish it off.

Brewing never ceases to amaze!!!

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9 minutes ago, porschemad911 said:

My only thought would be the temperature. What temp is the CCA yeast batch at now? 

Started and held at the 18c and still there. Will have to take it out of the fridge and put it on the heat belt in the morning i think. I usually do that to 20c when it hits about 75% of my expected attenuation but this one never got there.

My only thought is an underpitch. Maybe a lot of the cells died in the week it was in the jar. But by the way it took off it didnt seem so. Mystery.

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12 hours ago, Greeny1525229549 said:

...The 23L batch on the other hand with the CCA yeast has s*it itself at 1030 after starting at 1055. Extremely confused as to why. There was a week old slurry pitched (probably 250ml of compacted slurry) and it took off in about 2 hours. Should have been enough yeast cells for almost two batches. Would have bet my house that it would have finished quicker than the other let alone stall out which has never ever happened to me with the CCA yeast. It has gone slow after an underpitch but never stopped.

Brewing never ceases to amaze!!!

The same thing happened to me a little while back when I brewed the Sparkling Ale recipe. I prepped more stubbies of the CCA yeast than I normally do given the increased OG of the beer. It started well & then stalled well ahead of expected FG. I was left scratching my head too as it had never happened before. I ended up having to pitch some Nottingham to finish off the ferment. The beer, luckily turned out fine.

10 hours ago, Greeny1525229549 said:

...My only thought is an underpitch. Maybe a lot of the cells died in the week it was in the jar. But by the way it took off it didnt seem so. Mystery.

That's all I could put it down to as well even though I seemingly re-activated plenty.

Good luck finishing it off.

Lusty.

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On 5/23/2019 at 10:32 AM, Greeny1525229549 said:

Hey lusty. Yeah CCA is my Mr Reliable too. Anyway have stirred it up this morning and will check if its moving again when i bottle the other one on Saturday. If it hasn't then its getting the slurry off the other one to finish it off. 

Cheers

Greeny

Bottled the RIS made with S-04 yesterday. Took a reading and the other one still hadn't moved despite the stir. So pitched the whole slurry from the RIS. Took off again within 2 hours and it's down 6 points in a day. Sample tasted fine so looks like all is well. Not optimal but I'll have beer at least.

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Funny this topic should come up I am about to do a double batch of Coopers Stout ... US05 ... 1kg DDM 1 kg BE3 and 800 g Golden syrup ... with a 20 minute hop tee of 50g fuggles and then 50g fuggles dry hop ... my question is the fuggles regime satisfactory and what will the Golden Syrup and the DDM bring to the flavour profile ...  

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I'm not sure that golden syrup will add much to the flavour profile in a stout. You'd probably want molasses or treacle to have much impact. What those syrups add is they are an inverted sugar which can apparently add to head formation. Personally, I like that over just using dex.

https://beerandbrewing.com/dictionary/RA7UFOgfgQ/

Edited by Instigator
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On ‎5‎/‎26‎/‎2019 at 6:55 PM, Greeny1525229549 said:

Bottled the RIS made with S-04 yesterday. Took a reading and the other one still hadn't moved despite the stir. So pitched the whole slurry from the RIS. Took off again within 2 hours and it's down 6 points in a day. Sample tasted fine so looks like all is well. Not optimal but I'll have beer at least.

Your RIS Slurry worked a treat by the looks Greeny hey?

So are we saying that keeping the FV Yeast Slurry in the fridge does not always work out that well?  And have we got age limits on the slurry as well?

I pitched some DarkAleToucan (Dark Ale+Lager+some LDME in 23L) slurry in a sterile starter for my very first AG brew Ale on Anzac Day (yet to do the official 'release' on the results 😜) with quite high OG and overnight did not have much action.

As it turned out I had to go to airport next day (good few hours away but route can go past MLHB shop) so got hold of some Safale US05, pitched that night, and by the next morning all was going quite nicely. 

So maybe it is a good idea to have some dried yeast on hand?

Especially if ABV is high i.e. higher ABV does not look after yeasts very well?

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10 hours ago, Bearded Burbler said:

 

So are we saying that keeping the FV Yeast Slurry in the fridge does not always work out that well?  And have we got age limits on the slurry as well?

So maybe it is a good idea to have some dried yeast on hand?

Especially if ABV is high i.e. higher ABV does not look after yeasts very well?

Yeah the S04 will sort it out. I checked this morning and the new krausen has dropped. Ill check it this afternoon and see where it is at. My guess its almost done.

It usually works out fine. No idea why it didnt this time. This was week old slurry from a moderate abv batch previously. It was about 3/4 of the slurry too. I usually work on 1.5bn cells per ml and this was about 250ml of compacted slurry so it should have been more than enough but seems it wasnt. 

I wouldn't use slurry over 3 weeks old. I make a new starter up in that case. I might also have to rethink 1 week as well now too.

The slurry sits under alcohol and prolonged exposure to alcohol will kill the cells. So yeah higher abv slurry wont last as long as a lower abv one. 

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Even fermenter slurry shouldn't die off that quickly. I am planning to do some viability tests on it, just got some other things to get first. I need more slides and covers since the last ones I had got lost in the house move, but it's not high on the priority list at the moment. 

Yeast from starters I observed a viability of around 80-85% after 45 days. At a month it was just under 90%, but different conditions to a proper batch of course. 

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52 minutes ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Even fermenter slurry shouldn't die off that quickly. I am planning to do some viability tests on it, just got some other things to get first. I need more slides and covers since the last ones I had got lost in the house move, but it's not high on the priority list at the moment. 

Yeast from starters I observed a viability of around 80-85% after 45 days. At a month it was just under 90%, but different conditions to a proper batch of course. 

Yeah this is the first time its happened like this Kelsey. Im only surmising it was an underpitch though it started off fast and got a good krausen on it. Temp was constant 18c as well. I have done slurry 3 weeks and more and not a problem. 

Will be very interested in your results when you get to it. My viability and pitching numbers is off experience only and well look where that got me 😆

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Thanks John.  Thanks Greeny.  Thanks Kelsey.

I think the takeaway message is to keep some dry yeast on hand for those events where things don't go quite as well as they could (especially when you are out in the boondogglers like me and the brew yeast shop is less accessible)  and to use a starter to get a stored slurry population going....

So with the Starters - I have a previous note of c. 300g LDME in 3L fermentable 'growth' solution I think from you Greeny - but think that was to fire up off a packet of dried yeast?   Guess that would be fine for slurry too?

How much slurry would I add to such a solution and how long would you 'grow the population up' i.e. before time to pitch? 

Say for an All Grain Ale approx. 23L heading out at 18 degC with OG around 1055 for example... 🤔

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