Significant sedimentation in my stout - normal?

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hezagenius

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This is my first stout. Let it sit in the primary for 2 weeks and in the bottle for 2 weeks. I grabbed 6 to throw in the fridge to try on Sunday to make sure they are good to go for St. Patty's Day. I held a flashlight up to the beer to check it. The stout is crystal clear and there is about 0.25 - 0.50 inches of sediment on the bottom of every bottle. Is this normal? The sediment actually has 2 layers. The bottom layer is light in color and looks fairly compacted. The top layer is dark and looks very fine and not compacted. Did something get screwed up? I primed with a packet of Muntons Kreamy X. The recipe called for DME but I figured the substitution would be OK. When I bottled it, the stout looked nice and dark. I don't know if this is possible but could some of the color have settled out?
 
Sediment in your bottles? Oh man, that means it's ruined.

Kidding, kidding. Pretty much every homebrew is going to have sediment in the bottom of the bottle. Totally normal, nothing to worry about.

Now go RDWHAHB.
 
You'll be fine. All unfiltered homebrew has some sediment, some beers more than others. Pour the beer, drink it.
 
well next time you can leave it in primary longer and use a yeast that flocculates better. I notice s-04 makes a really compact cake on the bottom and flocculates very well. It may not attenuate as well as others. You might also try cold crashing for a few days before bottling to get more of the yeast to settle. I've never racked to secondary , but I'm sure that would help. In the end, you will always get some sedimentation in the bottle and even the keg bottom.
 
I'm just concerned that there is too much sedimentation. All of my other batches have had a small layer at the bottom of each bottle but these have a lot. I rolled one of the bottles in my hand and the dark top layer got resuspended in the beer while the light bottom layer stuck to the bottom of the bottle. Kind of weird. I've never seen two different colored layers before.
 
Crack one open and see how it looks and tastes. If it tastes OK then no problem. If only the color is off it doesn't really matter.
 
Hi There,

Sorry to bump an ancient thread, but I've also just brewed my first stout, and I also have tons of sediment with the double layer just as the OP described here. I couldn't find another similar account anywhere on the internet, which made me somewhat nervous. Hezagenius -- by any chance do you remember if this brew turned out ok?

I should also mention that this was the first time I used protofloc in my boil (1/2 a tab) and so I kind of assume it may be related. The double layer of sediment looks a little suspicious.

Thanks!
 
Hi There,

Sorry to bump an ancient thread, but I've also just brewed my first stout, and I also have tons of sediment with the double layer just as the OP described here. I couldn't find another similar account anywhere on the internet, which made me somewhat nervous. Hezagenius -- by any chance do you remember if this brew turned out ok?

I should also mention that this was the first time I used protofloc in my boil (1/2 a tab) and so I kind of assume it may be related. The double layer of sediment looks a little suspicious.

Thanks!

Blast from the past! Yeah, I think they tasted fine. Not sure if I picked up too much trub during racking or maybe the fermentation wasn't quite done yet. Either way, they didn't turn into bottle bombs and they tasted OK. Once it's in the bottles, all that's left to do is drink it. That's the easy part.
 
Thank you, thank you, for this rapid and encouraging reply. Will update in two weeks with the results!

This place is officially the best.
 

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