OK to add treacle to Stout just before bottling?

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

mancer62

Landlord.
Joined
Nov 20, 2012
Messages
638
Reaction score
39
I have an extract Stout I am ready to bottle would it be ok to add treacle to it before I bottle. I know this will have no effect on abv but will it enhance the flavour or should this have been done at an earlier stage?
If adding is ok can I ask how long for as I would really love to have it at least drinkable for xmas?
 
5 or 6 g of treacle per litre will give you adequate carbing. Any more or considerably less and then I would allow it to fermeny out first, then bottle and prime with sugar as normal or you could over or undercarb your stout. And make sure the treacle is dissolved in some boiling water before you add it to the FV. And the best time to add stuff like treacle imo is at the beginning of the fermentation.
 
yes i understand that ... i have made stout with treacle before but added at the beginning. i am just wondering for taste purposes would it be possible to add on bottling day?
if so would u boil it in some warm or boiling water first then stir into bottling bucket prior to bottling or wouldn't this work. also if ok to add at this stout would i still prime bottles with 1 teaspoon of sugar as normal?
 
You will be fine to use it for bottling as its a form of sugar and should add 'something' with regards to taste. Personally I would add the correct amount to boiling water and mix vigorously, then pour into your bottling bucket for batch priming and mix well with the beer.

Doing the above should stop big lumps of treacle which could mean a mixture of bottle bombs and flat beer
 
yes i understand that ... i have made stout with treacle before but added at the beginning. i am just wondering for taste purposes would it be possible to add on bottling day?
if so would u boil it in some warm or boiling water first then stir into bottling bucket prior to bottling or wouldn't this work. also if ok to add at this stout would i still prime bottles with 1 teaspoon of sugar as normal?
If you carefully read through what I said you will find answers to your questions.
 
Treacle has a rather distinctive taste and if you are keen to drink by Xmas, I suggest you bottle at least half using sugar to prime as normal and then add the treacle to the bottling bin, as Richard H suggests.
 
I used 100g black treacle to prime 21 litres of Cooper's stout. After eight weeks it's nicely carbonated with just a hint of treacle taste.
 
If you add treacle at the bottling stage, either:
Add sufficient treacle to prime the batch and DON'T add any priming sugar, or
Add some treacle and then 'top up' with some priming sugar so the total amount equals the amount of priming sugar you would have added, or
Don't add treacle and only use priming sugar
 
excuse my ignorance but what ratios would u estimate I'll need to use to properly add to taste and prime 40pints..
I do enjoy treacle and wouldnt mind a stronge taste.
The tin is 454g of lyles black treacle.
So how much sugar would I also need to add if I used half the tin or the full tin?
 
The taste is largely irrelevant now, just add what you would need to prime 40 pints (i.e. just the treacle) and hope for the best:

1607621422304.png
 
You need to look at the ingredients on the tin - this should enable you to work out how much sugar is included in the whole tin of 454g of treacle. Then take the amount of sugar you would normally prime with (ie 100g or whatever) and calculate how much of the tin you would have to use to get the same amount of sugar to add to prime.

For instance, if there is 50g of sugar content in 100g of treacle, there would be 50 x 454/100g or 227g of sugar content in the whole tin. This would obviously be far too much to use to prime a 20 litre batch if you normally use 100g of priming sugar and so you would use 100/227 x 454g or 200g of treacle for priming, in this example. Disclaimer: I have NO idea what the sugar content of 100g of black treacle is so have made up the figures in this example.
 
Last edited:
If you really want to get the flavour you could always rack it again onto a larger amount of pre dissolved treacle and do a secondary fermentation type of thing for a week and then bottle as normal, just depends if you have enough time before you plan on drinking.

For priming the brewer's friend calculator suggests using about 10% more treacle than you would use if you were using table sugar. (Priming is non linear due to the CO2 already in solution post-fermentation but as a rough formula +10% should be ok I think?)
 

Latest posts

Back
Top