Stout secondary fermentation, can I raise ABV and make a little darker?

[deeve007]

Hey guys,

Newbie here so apologies if my questions are a little dumb, still learning and trying things out...

So I have an oatmeal stout that's been sitting in the fermenter for a week, that I had some minor issues with when brewing. Hence the OG was a little lower than expected, and sampling some now (and measuring gravity) it seems a little light in both flavour and colour than I would expect from this style. I will certainly be waiting another week before considering bottling, but was also thinking about trying out secondary fermentation with maybe half this batch... another step on the learning process...

I was thinking of trying raspberry and chocolate in the second fermenter... so would the fruit raise the ABV a little, and would the chocolate help darken the beer at all?

Or any other suggestions I could try?

 

[aeviaanah]

Not commonly recommended but If you have time and energy I suggest you experiment with secondary. First hand knowledge is worth its weight in gold.

I suggest taking notes for future improvements. Don’t overthink about changing a batch. Brewing comes with planning and accepting the beer for what it is. Take notes, improve next batch.

Do chocolate in the boil and FV. My opinion is to not mess with Primary. Get it into keg/bottle and add extract/flavors to taste. Have a solid plan next batch and be prepared.

 

[OnePlate]

My advice is to just let it be in primary another week and bottle it. There is nothing with a session-strength stout, especially if it is drinkable enough. Don't experiment until you can brew a few solid batches in a row and nail all the fundamentals. A strong foundation will pay off HUGE dividends in both confidence and beer quality when you start experimenting and actually have good idea of what to expect.

I fear adding chocolate and raspberry will just ruin what is otherwise a drinkable batch of beer.

 

[Conehead]

Weyermann sinimar will get it darker.

 

[hottpeper13]

I've found that the black beer flavors come on after 6-8 weeks G to G. I would not change anything on this batch, in 8 weeks you might have an awesome beer. Take notes and brew on!

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Hmm, I think a bit differently to some others in this thread! I rarely want to drink a full batch of beer (I brew far, far, far more than I can drink) so splitting batches is a great way to get variety and try new things. If you wait until bottling to split (so half the batch is bottled as-is with no modification), doing something with the other half is a great way to try out some other ideas and still see the quality of your base beer. Assuming a 5 gallon batch, you'll still have over a case/carton of the original beer! If your beer supplies are low though, and you need (want) beer in the pipeline, bottle it all as is - experiments often don't turn out as well as expected.

Raspberries - will add ABV and also dry the beer out a bit. They add a nice tartness. I've used frozen raspberries without boiling and they worked well.
Chocolate - I haven't used and there are many ways to add (nibs/powder, alcohol/boil for extraction etc.). Presumably would add some colour, but probably not a lot.

You could also steep some dark grains (or mini-mash with some base malt) and boil with some extract, then add to secondary to darken the beer and up the ABV (you could potentially even turn it into an imperial stout).

 

[deeve007]

Hmm, I think a bit differently to some others in this thread! I rarely want to drink a full batch of beer (I brew far, far, far more than I can drink) so splitting batches is a great way to get variety and try new things.

Yeah 20L of beer is WAY too much for me to consume, even giving away some to friends. I'm going to bottle around half, and then take the chance to experiment on the other half.

Apreciate the tips from everyone.

 

[deeve007]

Oh, and a friend of mine sent me this, so I can work out approx added ABV depending on fruit: http://blog.craftbeertraders.com/fruit-gravity-alcohol-calculator/

 

[deeve007]

So I'm going for a mixed fruit (raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, strawberry) & date stout experiment on half my batch (bottle rest)... no raspberries themselves around due to season and availability, hence the mixed fruit frozen fruit I found in the local supermarket.

Not sure whether to also go the lactose/milk stout path too, or leave it with the fruit experimentation...

 

[Beernik]

I wouldn’t add lactose to it (besides me being severely lactose intolerant now).

Lactose & chocolate make sense. Lactose and fruit seems like a flavor conflict. In my head, I’m get the flavor of fruit yogurt in stout.

 

[deeve007]

I'm leaning towards not using it, with this combo... the dates idea came from the calculator posted above, it will add some good ABV, plus I'm really interested to see what flavours it adds, underlying the other fruits which should be dominant flavour-wise.

Anyway, worst case scenario I lose ~$10 worth of ingredients if it doesn't work, and still have 10L of straight stout to see how that went.

 

[deeve007]

So 10L bottled, and remaining 10L racked onto 230g of dates & 600g of red/dark fruits:

Should add just under 1% abv, and hopefully some great flavour... fingers crossed!

 

[deeve007]

So **** yeah, it worked!!
[edit] ("Fudge", really...? Oh you Americans... ) [/edit]

Not quite as strong fruit flavour as I had hoped (I took notes of how much I added so can add more next time), but flavour is a lovely subtle red/dark fruit flavour! Not sure the style, maybe a red fruit brown ale...? Anyway, I've made my first beer that I can say is my own recipe! (albeit coming out of not quite being accurate with the original recipe )