Hi,
I've made a dark chocolate stout using four cans of Toohey's extract (2xclassic, 2xdark), plus 2kg of sugar and 250g of cocoa powder. The start gravity was off the scale and estimated at 1200, and the current gravity has been 1076 for the last three days. There is still a bit of activity in the airlock (the pressure is still there and bubbles now and then) but I've bottled in the past when the gravity has remained constant over a 24 hour period.
I've also been told to use half the priming sugar when bottling. I've made 11%+ beers in the past and did not cut back on the priming sugar. Do I need to this time because it's a higher alcohol brew? I personally don't think so but is there anybody out there with experience in these higher alcohol brews?
It currently tastes really good, even warm & flat from the fermenter, and tastes like a chocolate liqueuer more than a stout but I'm going to age it. It's a bit hard to estimate the alcohol content given that the cocoa will affect the gravity reading (and as some of the cocoa settles this too will affect the reading). How much alcohol do you think it might be when using 2kg dextrose and 4 cans of extract? Going by the start and end gravity (1200 and 1076) I estimate it at 17% but given there is cocoa I'd probably put that back to about 14%. What do you think?
Cheers,
Richy