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Is it worth starting the kit stout for this winter?


drewbert

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55 minutes ago, karlos_1984 said:

Interesting. How'd the one with the port turn out?

I made a toucan stout in February to have for this winter. I set aside a dozen Long necks and only primed with one carb drop to age for 12 months. The rest I kept for this winter. Just grabbed one to have with lunch on this cold home brew Wednesday. I've only got 5 stubbies and 1 long neck left to last me until the end of this winter. Enjoying it way too much...

I liked it the port taste came thru very lightly at the end but as expected the acl/ vol went up.

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22 hours ago, drewbert said:

Yeah it's the Cooper's plastic one. One error correcting for now. But have a plan to get a good one soon. 

Hey DB mate - very sad to hear about the bad stuff going on re the big R...

Been there a few times meself over the last 10 years..... but at least if you are brewing - you are going to be controlling the cost of having a beer - and getting something better than the expensive and aggro megaswill available in the Pub (in most cases best stayed out of... mmmm …. had a few years of experience of wasting money there too).

I did an Anzac Day Stout... so less than two months prior... Coops Tin plus 2.3kg of LDME (dry extract) w a Goldings 5g Teabag hop late... 23L and 18 deg C... have been drinking it for a while... pretty much after 3-4 weeks in the bottle at 20 deg C secondary ferment.

Turned out really nice.  I think it would only be better if you could sub the dry malt for liquid - myself - but I think that if you get your brew down, Primary ferment done... into the bottle and give it 3 weeks in the warm world like 20degC, that it is going to pretty ok to have a crack at from then on.

So mine is 2 months old and is GOLD.  Now I don't have a GC-MS (Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer) to measure the difference whether it is going to be better in 12 month's time than now... but I do have a much higher resolution appartus for aroma and flavour determination.... I have my nose and mouth... and reckon that it is already pretty drinkable and tasty.  The master brewers on this site might say different... but honestly as long as you give it time in the bottle to secondary ferment... and a few weeks to settle down.... then it is already pretty good.

Gold if you have facility to have yer brew lounging around like an unregistered dog for 12 months or so.... Wooohooo…. that is great.  But not everyone has that luxury. Or an unregistered dog.

My LHBS guys run a microbrewery and I cannot see those chaps (battling to keep their little quality brew business going) having facility to store their brews for 12 months to work out whether it is tasty or not.

And in Bris there is this thing about Carlton brewery fresh beer marketing bollllox…. like fresh from the brewery.... ?

So I reckon... brew up and brew on... and in 4-6 weeks from get go you will have a reasonable Stout to have a tastie up.  And if you think you need to have maturity on brews... try to get hold of a few more empty Coopers Bottles and put some more down for the future....

HTH.

BB

 

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46 minutes ago, drewbert said:

Another question around stouts. It's got a rather foamy Krouse (?) Head on it. Should I be running this with one of those collars to give extra head space?

Only if you have it... but opening up and changing shittt around is opportunity for infection.

Of course having it spurt out of the bubbler is always a bit sad... and you certainly do not want the air to come haring back through a sputum contaminated bubbler that then sucks air back through and into the brew when things calm down...  as in the meantime the bubbler has collected whatever wild yeasts and moulds in the local district back into the bubbler reservoir...

The festive Krausen is good... and shows the yeast is GOING OFF and processing the fermentable sugars into Alc and C02.... ... which I think is a positive... and in the future if you can use the Krausen Collar so you should if you find there are over-topping issues or spit-out-the-bubbler-issues... but as long as things do not over-top I would not touch it.... let it cruise...   Now you know that at 18 or 20 or whatever deg C this will happen... that maybe next time if need be... use the K-Collar... live and learn.

 

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On ‎6‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 4:02 PM, Zume Brew said:

Im late to the game this year, im putting my Coopers stout down on Saturday. Ill try to age some...but im prolly gonna drink em all by then end of winter, honestly! Bottling a Brown ale this weekend, so at least ill have some semi-winter warmers soon, even if it isnt a stout 😠

 

Have a home brew for every redundancy dollar 👍

20190618_160115.jpg

This looks really nice.  I reckon that adding the liquid malt makes all the difference.  And think that a Toucan Stout with a Coops Lager would work well. Have done with Dark Ale and worked out really nice.  But the above looks really good ZB.  Hope it works out well mate. BB

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Doesn't look like that fermenter has an airlock. Yes stouts can be pretty volcanic and usually are. My last one was surprisingly tame considering the size of it (1.086 OG). The krausen barely reached 2 inches. 

The krausen collar is useful for this situation although yes it should have ideally been fitted at the beginning. 

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7 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

 

The krausen collar is useful for this situation although yes it should have ideally been fitted at the beginning. 

My kit never had a collar which is why I didn't put it on in the first place. Had just watched some vids of stouts being made in the Cooper's kit. More a should ii source one sort of moment

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12 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

If you're planning on making stout regularly, I would. 

I've got a plan for it for a bit later on. I can get a 30l plastic fantastic 'kit' for $35 that should have the head Room I need for stout. Unless 30l vessel for 23l batch still isn't big enough...

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I've done a lot of toucan stouts using a coopers fermenter with collar and a non coopers 30 litre one.

I use the fill to 19 litres and top up after a few days method on the non Coopers fv, give the lid a rinse if its grubby.

With the coopers fv you can remove the collar after a few days and clean it while the gunk is still soft.

The non coopers fv is a pain to clean, with its tapered top and handle intrusions.

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On 6/20/2019 at 6:20 PM, Otto Von Blotto said:

Another method is to only fill it to 18 litres, then once the foam starts subsiding, get 5 litres of boiled and cooled water and put it in to make 23. 

I've often wondered about the affects of dry pitching yeast in this reduced volume scenario. Although the recommended required cells counts are the same, the osmotic pressures are obviously different (& higher) than pitching into say the full volume 23 litre brew.

The literature suggests that the death rate of yeast cells increases especially with non-rehydrated dry yeast due to osmotic pressure(s).

Most of these types of ferments are quite vigorous & volatile so it does make you wonder about all the possible cannibalism going on inside the FV & whether that is a positive thing or not? 🤔

Just a thought.

Lusty.

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4 minutes ago, YeastyBoy said:

@drewbertLatest Brew this week as noted above.

Use a 26l FV for my stouts, only go to 21L for an extra stout. Run at 18C. 

Never had an issue re needing a collar. So its all about enough space for your brew as you note.

Stoutbrew.thumb.JPG.9e158c867046d653b4deb10350f9ec79.JPG

That looks very nice. My temp controller only has a heat belt connected ATM. Have not sorted cooling as of yet. Because of that I'm sitting the wort at 20-21c 

 

I don't think a fan on it would do enough to get it down 3c

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I've used the collar twice. Once for my first ever brew.
Second time was for a Coopers Russian Imperial Stout.

Pics here of the RIS   https://community.diybeer.com/topic/5277-toucan-dark-ale-stout/?page=9&tab=comments#comment-164428

The first brew definitely didn't need it. The second one didn't really either.
I think the stout didn't need it as I got it down to fermenting temperature almost immediately with chilled water.
And because it was temperature controlled it didn't get out of hand.

If I wasn't using temperature control I'd either use the collar or get a 30 litre FV.

Edited by Graculus
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I started with half the volume once and pitched yeast. That was one all grain brew session. Then I brewed the second half the next day and added it to the fermenter. Only did that because of a stuffed up grain order, but the beer came out really nice. 

Cheers, 

John 

Edited by porschemad911
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Will my first stout is bottled. Was Prob one of the best bottling runs I've had. 30 longies almost no wastage.  Only real fail was test bottle was placed a tad hard on the bench by accident. Well it opened up to a shower of brown. not the worst Brown shower I suppose. Bottle was the very last as well so not quite the best test. Oh well. Waiting till the 13 th for a real go

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Yeah the syringe trick works to get a creamy head but it's not quite the same as a proper nitro pour. It'd get closer to the Guinness style if the beer itself is in the same style. 

I've done it with my stout but being a completely different style to Guinness it doesn't really make the mouthfeel like it. Does maintain a tightly packed head all the way down the glass though. 

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