Expertise needed on my first non-kit beer

[katfude]

Hello,

I'm fermenting my first non-kit beer currently. It's a milk stout with a OG of 1.066 and I pitched a pack of WYeast 1728 - Scottish Ale™ into a plastic pail sealed by a 3 piece airlock. It took 1 day for airlock activity, but then it was bubbling like crazy. 1 day later, it dropped off and now I'm seeing 1 bubble every 20 seconds (6 days after pitching). I took a draw and the current gravity is 1.032, so it's still pretty high.

I would just let it sit, but I want to swap it over to a secondary fermentor so I can add 100% cacao powder to the beer. Normally, I'd let it sit in the primary, but I need to move it into a secondary for the chocolate.

Now that that is all out of the way... when should I move this over to the secondary? Today while fermentation is still going, or wait for fermentation to stop completely in however many days (seems like this one is going to go for a while)?

 

[porterpounder]

Let it complete its fermentation in primary. Milk stouts often take a bit longer or finish higher than expected due to the lactose. If you move it too early you may not have enough healthy yeast in suspension to get rid of the nasty bi-products of the fermentation and you will probably stall the fermentation. Warm it up to get it to finish quicker. At this point in the fermentation warming it into the 70s won't cause any off-flavors. Don't want to ruin what should be a good beer by being impatient.

 

[rodwha]

I made a chocolate brown ale not too long ago and added cacao nibs I had soaked in vodka for 2 months to the primary after 2 weeks of fermentation. It worked out rather well.

Are you certain you need to secondary it (maybe you do)?

 

[katfude]

I'm in a brew bucket currently. My plan was to do a small boil and add about 4oz of cacao powder to that boil (my batch size is 5gal), and transfer that into a secondary carboy to create a "cacao cake" at the bottom, then siphon the milk stout over top of it from the primary.

 

[nettekdl]

How much lactose was used? Lactose is an unfermentable sugar so it will cause you to have a high fg, probably not as high as it is now, but higher then other styles

 

[mcbar]

I suspect that adding cocoa before primary fermentation is complete would cause a lot of the flavour and aroma you're hoping to add to be driven off. Don't rush - there's no window of opportunity that will close if you don't add it soon enough.

 

[alby44]

I would just let it sit, but I want to swap it over to a secondary fermentor so I can add 100% cacao powder to the beer. Normally, I'd let it sit in the primary, but I need to move it into a secondary for the chocolate.

Now that that is all out of the way... when should I move this over to the secondary? Today while fermentation is still going, or wait for fermentation to stop completely in however many days (seems like this one is going to go for a while)?

Were it me, I'd let it sit for at least another 8-10 days before you consider moving. You can use that time to make a cocoa 'tea' solution using a vodka solution. I did something similar. On brew day, I also roasted, then ground up cocoa nibs. I then put them in a mesh bag and allowed it to soak in vanilla flavored vodka. You could do something like that.....pull the bag after about a week and dump in fermenter.

I also did (and would still do) all of this in the primary fermenter.

 

[Muckdog]

I've made a similar stout with vanilla in the secondary. I'd say wait until after the fermentation to transfer it, then let it sit a while in the secondary as well. The longer the better with stouts.

 

[nettekdl]

Just for a point of reference I do my vanilla milk stout about 14 days primary then keg it and add vanilla and let it set about 6 months in a c02 purged keg and even then it still isn't the best it could be I'm just not patient enough for longer

 

[katfude]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I will let this one finish out fermentation before transferring over to the secondary for the cacao addition. I used a pound of lactose so I'm sure it will be sitting in the primary for a while by everyone's accounts.

I'm going to give it a minimum of 14 days in the secondary but I'll be hard pressed to hold off on drinking it after that point.

 

[hottpeper13]

That yeast has a habit of finishing high, to get mine from 1.039 after 4 days at 64* I had to shake it and bring the temp to 70* for the rest of a 3 week primary that finished at 1.019. It's all about temp control.

 

[katfude]

Thank you for that info on the yeast strain, will definitely look into kicking up the temp if the gravity didn't move when I check tomorrow.