Imperial Stout Question

My stout was in the primary for two weeks (O.G. 1.075) and it never dropped below 1.034 so I racked to a 5 gallon carboy and within 2 hours the airlock was active. I now have foaming activity in the carboy as well. The area I primaried in was at a temperature of about 67 degrees. After racking to the carboy I put a heater in the space and the temperature is now at 70 degrees give or take 1 degree.

Question is simple: Did the racking or temperature change re-start the fermentation or maybe a combination of both? I purged the carboy with co2 so I don't think I aerated the beer very much during transfer.

Another question: When I am ready to keg this stout, is refrigerating necessary and what pressure would you recommend either way? I have a stout tap and beer gas for serving. Also, is it necessary to periodically change back to regular co2 to keep the stout carbonated?

Thanks for any feedback.

Salute!

First, I think that you kick off the fermentation by aerating the wort moving it to secondary. High gravity beers need lots of oxygen to finish out. If you shook the wort prior to pitching it might have not been enough. High gravity beers attenuate much beer using O2 rather than shaking (however some may disagree...everyone has there experience). This said I think you just didn't aerate you wort enough.

As far as carbonation is concerned, it's based on temperature and pressure. There are several resources (charts) that describe give you the appropriate carbonation in Volumes based on a specific pressure and temperature. So for you Imperial Stout you should carbonate at about 2.5 Volumes. Look at the chart in How to brew or some other resource (I'll try to find a link and post for you).

Bear in mind that this beer will be really good in about a year with such a high gravity. Good luck and hope it turns out for you.

Probably a combo of both. Just mixing up the yeast to get them into suspension will usually be enough to get fermentation going again.

As far as the kegging - you do not need to chill to force carb, although it is faster. Try googling for the pressure - there are calculators out there that will tell you what pressure to set it at for different styles. I don't have any experience with beer gas, but it ise 75%N2 and 25%CO2, both of which dissolve in the beer, so I believe you can just keep that hooked up to maintain carbonation

Jimbob said:

Bear in mind that this beer will be really good in about a year with such a high gravity. Good luck and hope it turns out for you.

Click to expand...

??? A year! Wow.... I was thinking a month or so. Is a year of aging normal for an Imperial Stout? The kit had me believing it would only be a few weeks. I am sure I can consume it early (and green), but is it worth the wait? If I cabonate in a keg and store it away, will it be okay that long?

Salute!

Some beers will do much better with age and the Imperial Stout is one of them. I've read one to three years. That being said, it doesn't mean you can drink it. By all means drink it. You may see that after some extended aging the flavors begin to mellow and mature much more, specifically the hot alcohol flavors. You can even find this with normal stouts as well. This is certainly not a "YOU MUST AGE YOUR BEER A YEAR" thing, but it would certainly be worth putting some aside for a tasting later on.

Yes it should be fine carbonated in the keg and aged. The difficulty is keeping it cool during the storage. I say that because if your limited on space.

With regard to my earlier reply here is a link to a carbonation chart:

Force Carbonation & Carb Table

So figure about 2 to 2.5 volumes choose a temp and pressure, you will have multiple options. Let me know if I can help out at all.