1. Home
  2. Home Beer Brewing
  3. differences between adding ingredients to primary or secondary

differences between adding ingredients to primary or secondary

Hi,

I'm looking at making a coconut cream stout, with organic coconut and coconut juice w/ pulp, and I was wondering if there really is that much difference between adding the (boiled, of course) coconut & juice etc to the primary, and then bottling when it's all done, as opposed to waiting til primary fermentation has completed, then racking and adding the boiled coconut & juice etc, and waiting again for it to complete before bottling.

I'm not impatient (it sounds like it when I say "waiting again"), I'm just averse to losing 3 litres of my batch when moving from primary to secondary. Is the difference in brew quality that much difference, or will it only be marginally noticeable to the most experienced pallette?

Cheers,

Richy

Reply to
Richy
Loading thread data ...

Richy,

I am going to admit that I am pretty much a newbe when it comes to brewing but I have been reading a lot about the point of doing a secondary fermentation and it basically comes down to what you want to do. Some swear by it some say don't bother. When it comes to adding additional ingredients to a batch you can add it to the primary. The consensus is you shouldn't keep the beer on the dead yeast cake for more then a month after that you may start getting off flavors. So if your total fermentation time is less then a month you shouldn't have a problem adding your coconut straight to the primary. For me personally i feel if I have to open up the fermenter I might as well rack it to a secondary. It only takes a little while and I have noticed it does clear up the beer significantly. Then again stouts are not clear anyway so you may not get a benefit.

My 2 cents, Matt

Reply to
gisbrewmaster

Hey Richy,

I like to rack to secondary, but it is mostly because I never seem to find the time to get my batches into the kegs or bottles quickly. I have not really noticed much difference in flavor when I don't rack to secondary, but I will say my beers are much more clear when I take the time for a secondary ferm. I usually do 5 or 10 gallon all-grain batches. By the way, a coconut cream stout sounds really good; would you mind posting your recipe, if you get the chance?

kev

Reply to
beerboyfeelgood

Hey thanks for the two replies I got to my question.

I've wanted to make a coconut cream stout for several years, but was unsure about how to go about it (I thought about using real coconut cream but it contains a lot of oil which I thought would ruin the brew). I found a recipe at

formatting link

which is an allgrain recipe, whereas I only do partial mashes/extracts/ steeping, so I just followed what they did to get the coconut flavour.

i.e. 1kg of organic dessicated coconut, & 1lt of coconut juice with pulp

I ended up using 1.5lt of juice as I thought the coconut flavour was a bit weak (even before diluting to 23lt).

It's still in the fermenter (I set it going two days ago), and the coconut has settled to the bottom and is partially clogging the tap, so it's going to be fun trying to bottle it :)

Richy

ps it tastes ok at this stage, even though it's warm & flat and has a long way to go before it'll be ready pps I think my attempt at it will be more like a dark ale than a stout

Reply to
Richy

DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.