Stout Strawberry Secondary

[earthwormgaz]

No, it's not a pudding, but what I attempted with my stout yesterday.

The readings from the hydrometer had gotten down to 1.008, so ready to rack off. I siphoned it into my sterilised barrel (the only other big container I had), then cleaned the fermenting bin.

I then boiled and mashed three packs of (British) strawberries out of the freezer, with a pot of Nottinghamshire honey.

I let that cool in the fermenting bin, and then I might have gone wrong. I was reading on another thread 'StubbsPKS' saying that oxygen after fermenting has started is bad. So, I'm worried now, because rather than siphon back into the fermenting bucket, I ran the stout back in from the tap on the barrel. This made a lot of foam, and a lot of air/oxygen must have gotten back into the stout.

Is it going to taste like wet cardboard now? :pray:

 

[RobWalker]

Not the wisest move. The main advantage of syphoning is moving without exposing to the air...you know when you're drinking a beer and it tastes different after 15 minutes? Yeah. :s

As usual though, one way to find out. Hopefully it didn't get much exposure and if you got it straight into the keg and resealed, it's not like it's been sat around collecting crap from the air for ages. Good luck :)

 

[earthwormgaz]

I checked the gravity today (there was too much foam to do it last night). It seemed to be about 1.010, so it's gone up only a little bit from 1.008.

Is that what people would expect from the extra sugar sources?

Any more thoughts on whether I'm going to get away with having poured it with the tap for the secondary?

 

[earthwormgaz]

Well, the airlock was bubbling away last night and this morning ...

 

[StubbsPKS]

You may be lucky in that adding the extra sugars will get the yeast hungry again and they MIGHT eat away at the oxygen if you have a small enough head space (area above the beer and under the lid).

You may develop some slight off flavors, but you've lucked out in two ways here:

1) It's a stout rather than a pale beer. Pale beers tend to show flaws a lot easier than heavier more complex beers.

2) You've added fruit to further mask any flaws :)

This sounds like it could be a cracking pint for sure, but only time will tell for now. I would suggest leaving it alone for the most part until fermentation has finished and you're ready to keg/bottle.

Hopefully everything turns out for the best :thumb:

 

[earthwormgaz]

You may be lucky in that adding the extra sugars will get the yeast hungry again and they MIGHT eat away at the oxygen if you have a small enough head space (area above the beer and under the lid).

The airlock is doing a lot of gurgling, I'm hoping this is the case! :pray:

 

[earthwormgaz]

Another question, given the small rise in hydrometer reading I got, how long should I leave this, and how do you calculate the alcohol content when you've been through two fermenting stages?

 

[RobWalker]

I doubt it's likely that it's stirred and blended together properly so I'd go with a calculator instead of your hydro readings. if you bomb it all in a calculator, malt and all and just treat it as one ferment, that should give you a pretty accurate idea of your abv...maybe not perfect, but depends how much you're bothered. I tend to drop out at calculating my exact effeciency when doing a 500g partial mash...tomatoe tomato.

 

[earthwormgaz]

I racked this off again from the secondary yesterday. I put it in the barrel, then filled and capped a few bottles from that. I added some sugar to both.

I can't say as I can taste the strawberry to be honest, and it hasn't come out all that strong either, maybe 3.something-on-the-low-side.

I wonder if what I've made is more of a mild than a stout seeing as it's low strength and a little light tasting.

I put a bottle on evilBay for a charity auction ...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISAPI. ... 0689992545