Stratification of Addition in Secondary?

[acarter5251]

I am currently making a Russian Imperial Stout with some flavor additions in secondary to try and emulate something like Hunahpu.

A week ago, I added 3 small cinnamon sticks, 2 tsp real vanilla extract, 1 oz of dried ancho chiles, 0.5 oz dried pasilla chiles, 0.5 oz of guajillo chiles (all deseeded and chopped), and 4 oz of cacao nibs. 1 day prior to adding these, I allowed them to soak in bourbon. I then added all of these along with the bourbon (there was about 3.5 oz that hadn't been absorbed into my additions).

Today, I checked on the flavor by drawing a small sample off the top of my secondary and tasting. It tasted very much like bourbon and was much lighter in color than my samples prior to addition. Very little of the original stout flavor.

My question is: Is it possible that there is some stratification happening in my secondary, where the bourbon and spice additions are more concentrated at the top, while the bottom has more of the original stout character to it?

 

[acarter5251]

Just pulled a sample from deeper down and I can taste a bit more stout flavor, but the bourbon and spices are still pretty strong

 

[magno]

Stratification in the secondary is possible... will you be kegging or bottling? If bottling, I would think that the batch will get pretty well mixed when transferring to the bottling bucket, and as long as you don't give it time to re-stratify, you should have a decent mix in each bottle. My kegging experience is limited, but it seems that stratification may be an issue in the keg as well.

 

[doug293cz]

Stratification in the secondary is possible... will you be kegging or bottling? If bottling, I would think that the batch will get pretty well mixed when transferring to the bottling bucket, and as long as you don't give it time to re-stratify, you should have a decent mix in each bottle. My kegging experience is limited, but it seems that stratification may be an issue in the keg as well.

Solutions do not stratify spontaneously. You can have stratification when you combine two different solutions, and don't mix them adequately, but over time diffusion will homogenize the solution. OP's observation is probably due to incomplete initial mixing.

Brew on

 

[acarter5251]

Solutions do not stratify spontaneously. You can have stratification when you combine two different solutions, and don't mix them adequately, but over time diffusion will homogenize the solution. OP's observation is probably due to incomplete initial mixing.

Brew on

Yeah you're right. I suppose stratification wasn't exactly the term I was looking for. I racked over to keg for bulk aging and tasted a sample after siphoning over and it definitely had a more balanced flavor after that mixing of top and bottom.

 

[doug293cz]

Yeah you're right. I suppose stratification wasn't exactly the term I was looking for. I racked over to keg for bulk aging and tasted a sample after siphoning over and it definitely had a more balanced flavor after that mixing of top and bottom.

Stratification is an OK term to describe the situation before complete mixing.

Brew on