I transfered my RIS into a keg to age @~18C about a month ago now (will be done in December) and we tried a little bit of it and it's grainy. Most likely from the cocoa powder we added. Will cold crashing fix this? It wasn't the most pleasant thing in the world.
Tried my Chocolate Cherry RIS before aging... grainy?
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I can't say that I've ever had a RIS that was grainy. But I know that a beer as strong as a RIS is going to change a LOT over time. I'm betting that the alcohol hot is also affecting your perception, and besides that, there are things in the beer that will react with each other and change the flavor.
Cold crashing might help the beer settle better and be more clear. I *might* affect the long term stability of the beer, but in a RIS, that's not a problem. They are made to be kept for months and years, and most people find the transitions of those kinds of beers to be part of their allure.
I would cold crash if you want to, but wouldn't consider it a necessary step in the process for this kind of beer, and I don't think it will affect the flavor much in the short term (next few months) if it's already sat for a month.
I also have to ask if you remembered to pour a bit out before tasting to make sure to not get a bunch of trub in your glass?? It's a stupid question, I know, but sometimes the obvious things are overlooked.
Cold crashing might help the beer settle better and be more clear. I *might* affect the long term stability of the beer, but in a RIS, that's not a problem. They are made to be kept for months and years, and most people find the transitions of those kinds of beers to be part of their allure.
I would cold crash if you want to, but wouldn't consider it a necessary step in the process for this kind of beer, and I don't think it will affect the flavor much in the short term (next few months) if it's already sat for a month.
I also have to ask if you remembered to pour a bit out before tasting to make sure to not get a bunch of trub in your glass?? It's a stupid question, I know, but sometimes the obvious things are overlooked.
ArkotRamathorn
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I did a stout last year that I used cocoa powder in, did not run into an issue with grainniness, but it say in secondary for nearly 2 months before I ended up bottling. I'd bet itll go away by time you get to bottling/kegging. I did not cold crash or do anything fancy other than 2 months in secondary with vanilla beans.
As an interesting RIS anecdote, we used to pour from our BK into our bucket primary with a hop bag over the mouth and scoop off hop gunk as we went, but when we brewed our RIS, the bag holder(s) slipped and a bunch of hop trub got into the wort.
We _never_ got it out of suspension in this beer. We bottle, and I'm sure we let this one sit a while, but when we got to bottling, we had a lot of problems with the wand clogging from hop trub, and it was kind of hilarious because inky 11% ABV RIS was getting everywhere. Anyways, a good portion of the bottles ended up pretty much undrinkable despite trying to strain them in various ways (although looking back now, if we had used a newer, more fine nylon hop bag at bottling and / or if we poured the bottles through those, we probably could have alleviated problems), and I waited a few years / had some bottles cold condition for months.
I remember trying to crash it in secondary, shining a flashlight in there, and just seeing lots of floating particle matter...more or less stuck. It's like it was so thick it was held in suspension. Not saying you'll have any issues of the sort (I would think like others said, likely with yours, aging further and maybe crashing for a bit will bring everything down and maybe the first bit of the pour out of the keg will be trub-y), but it was amusing. Have never seen anything quite like it, but then again we did use something like 25# of grain for a 5gal batch.
We _never_ got it out of suspension in this beer. We bottle, and I'm sure we let this one sit a while, but when we got to bottling, we had a lot of problems with the wand clogging from hop trub, and it was kind of hilarious because inky 11% ABV RIS was getting everywhere. Anyways, a good portion of the bottles ended up pretty much undrinkable despite trying to strain them in various ways (although looking back now, if we had used a newer, more fine nylon hop bag at bottling and / or if we poured the bottles through those, we probably could have alleviated problems), and I waited a few years / had some bottles cold condition for months.
I remember trying to crash it in secondary, shining a flashlight in there, and just seeing lots of floating particle matter...more or less stuck. It's like it was so thick it was held in suspension. Not saying you'll have any issues of the sort (I would think like others said, likely with yours, aging further and maybe crashing for a bit will bring everything down and maybe the first bit of the pour out of the keg will be trub-y), but it was amusing. Have never seen anything quite like it, but then again we did use something like 25# of grain for a 5gal batch.
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