Acrid stout- Is my beer salvageable?

[WellsofMarah]

Hello everyone,

Needless to say, I've been reading here quite a while. I come to you in an hour of need. I've been brewing extract for a few years and I decided for my first all grain batch to go with a coffee-forward take on Founder's Breakfast stout. And then I made some mistakes....

The beer is about to go into secondary fermentation and so far I made two mistakes. The first unknown mistake I picked up was that I was dumb enough to not treat the water, yielding high acidity and a tart flavor so far. I had no idea that coffee, 21 pounds of grain, and soft spring water was a BAD idea. The second mistake was that there was an unforeseen (by me) spike in the yeast temperature triple by close to ten degrees. So, I have a stout with lovely notes of dark roast coffee and dark chocolate plagued with booziness and tartness.

So, I ask, is there anything I can add to the secondary fermenter to cut down on the tartness and to round it out? The booziness will likely fade being in the bottle for a few months. Still, if I can just get rid of the tartness, I can possibly salvage a respectable beer.

So..... Any suggestions?

 

[sandyeggoxj]

How about aging it on oak. Or doing a tincture of vanilla bean or something along those lines?

 

[Adam_Selene]

Back sweeten it with stabalized invert syrup, or the same ammount of honey with two teaspoons of sulphite (10 gallons?) Unless, your not bottle conditioning this.

--Adam Selene

 

[WellsofMarah]

Muchas Gracias to both of you. I can't say that enough. Oak aging the beer sounds appealing as well as possibly back sweetening it. I'm going to look into both ideas and go from there. I'm sending it to secondary tomorrow so we'll see.

 

[sandyeggoxj]

You bet. Post up with a followup to this when you give it a taste. I would like to know how it goes! I know that some oak and age on an oatmeal stout can play very favorably.

 

[insanim8er]

If you're just now transferring it to a brite tank, it's probably still green. I'd let it sit on the lees for a month before doing anything.

 

[Glynn]

lactose ?

 

[adrock430]

You can add carbonate now, especially if kegging. Adding chalk when kegging, around 5g if you water is real soft, will take the edge off.

 

[Hopper5000]

You do also have the possibility of aging it in secondary until you make another beer that you could blend with it. Although, the suggestions folks have made are pretty accurate.

 

[MindenMan]

I just have to ask, 21 pounds of grain is a lot. How many gallons were you brewing? You mention it being tart, is it tart or sour? It is tart like lemon juice, or sour like a lemon rind?