To carbonate or not to carbonate... Irish Stout

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mikefranciotti

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I brewed an all extract Irish Stout a few weeks ago and bottled last night. I love Guinness and must say, my Irish Stout tasted very similar.

After priming/bottling, I sampled what was left in the bottling bucket. Wow I kind of wished I hadn't primed the batch... Maybe done 50/50 prime/no prime.

My question is, if I were to make this again and bottle w/o priming, will the brew get better with age having done nothing?
 
What your beer tastes like flat with priming sugar mixed in, and what your beer tastes like after ~3 weeks bottle conditioning at 70 degrees are two very different things. Wait until it's time to drink them, then you'll probably think a bit differently about wanting to make flat beer.
 
Yea to clarify, I want to make it smooth like Guinness... I know nitrogen is used to prime Guinness but at this point I've got no clue how to do that. Figured maybe this was an easy trial/error.
 
Really, the only way you're going to get that perfect creamy head is to keg, and use beergas (usually about 75% CO2/25% Nitrogen) to dispense. You can also keg and use a special stout faucet to get nearly the same effect. Bottling it, it's never going to be 100% perfect, but you can get pretty close.
 
BUT I think if I recall, I heard in the past somewhere that in england anyway, they often used to serve ale at room temp and not very carbed at all. Not sure what bearing that has, but I often taste my samples after fermentation w/o any real carbing and they taste great at 72ish degrees.... my 2c's :p
 
The level of carbonation matters immensely; too much carbonation in a stout, and you're left with something watery and biting (from the carbonic acid).

How much priming sugar did you use?
 
BUT I think if I recall, I heard in the past somewhere that in england anyway, they often used to serve ale at room temp and not very carbed at all. Not sure what bearing that has, but I often taste my samples after fermentation w/o any real carbing and they taste great at 72ish degrees.... my 2c's :p

You're talking about real ale, and that is waaaay different than flat beer. You should read up on it. Pretty good stuff.
 
Fun with online tools!

The Beer Recipator - Home has a carbonation calculator. Click on it.

In the first dropdown, I picked "Irish Dry Stout" for the style, and it said 1.6-2.0 volumes is normal for that style.

So in the next box I put 1.8 volumes of CO2 as desired. I left "bottle priming" checked, and I entered 5 gallons of beer at a temperature of 65F. Then I click on "Corn sugar" (click it even if it's already checked).

It says: 2.40 oz of corn sugar are needed to carbonate appropriately for the style.
If I pick cane sugar, it recommends 2.28 oz.
 
A totally uncarbed beer isn't very good, you need some amount of carbonation.

+1

According beersmith, carbing a dry stout to style you would aim for between 1.8 and 2.5 volumes of co2. to bottle it (at 68 degrees) you would be using between 2.52 and 4.39 ounces of corn sugar. So obviously you would probably want to be carbing at the low end for your batches if you like it that way.
 
Yeah, you need some carbonation (it helps further condition the beer ofr any off flavors) but you don't need to use the standard 4.5-5 ounces that come with kits. There is a range of volumes of carbonation for every beer style.
BYO has a decent little chart..

Brew Your Own: The How-To Homebrew Beer Magazine - Carbonation Priming Chart
 
How much should you use? Sorry, I was trying to refrain from posting and just reading to answer my questions I don't want to hijack someones thread but this one is a cliff hanger, Im getting ready to brew my first AG Irish stout and do not want to over or under carbonate. I need to know. Thanks in advance.
 
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