Cleaning up a brew

[Simon David kelly]

Hi All,

The Russian Imperial Stout I have on the go has just gone to the secondary with a hop addition. The one thing I noticed is that there is a massive amount of small particles in there. It looks almost like fine grit.

Does anyone know what this is and more importantly, who the hell do I get ride of it and leave yeast behind for bottle conditioning?

Si

[JoKing]

Gidday mate.

Those particles will be either proteinacious particulates, or flocs of yeast, or hops. It is all completely normal to see this in your beer while it's fermenting. Keep the temperature up around the 20 degree mark to allow fermentation to complete (which sounds like it's still a week away given that it's at 1.040), and wait until you have 3 consecutive days where you are getting the same reading. This way you will know that fermentation is finished.

After the 3 days, leave the beer to lose carbonation, and clean itself up for another couple of days and give it the old taste test. If it is clean enough for you, chuck your fermenter in the fridge and blast it to zero for a few days to drop the majority of the crap down to the bottom of the fermenter.

When you are happy with the clarity, bottle it at this point. But be careful, as oxygen is way more easily absorbed into the beer at cold temperatures - so dont splash it when you are bottling it.

As far as your concern about there not being enough yeast in there to carbonate the beer - don't worry. Unless you have sterile filtered the brew, there will allways be enough yeast in there to get your bottles up to condition (provided you have them in a warm enough spot).

Moral of the story: you still have about 2 weeks to go before you should think about bottling.

[Simon David kelly]

Thanks man.

So that a fridge and temp control to buy this week :o)

[Soren]

assuming you racked carefully to the secondary and left as much of the trub behind (in primary) as possible I will second Jo's suggestion. the stuff should settle naturally when fermentation slows down... if your secondary is made of glass (or stainless:P) i would leave the beer in there for a month or so (longer if its a huge beer) to make sure its fully fermented and that the stuff has settled. depending on how flocculant your yeast is and how big your stout is you may want to add fresh yeast at bottling. after having a few duds I always add fresh yeast to my high gravity brews these days...

[Simon David kelly]

What sort of yeast amount are we taking here?

Couple of ml per bottle? (I bottle 750ml with 2-3 priming tabs)

SI

[Soren]

not much at all, if you have a pack of dry yeast just add it to the bottling bucket with your priming sugar. or if you bottle out of the fermenter just add it in there and let it difuse around without stirring up the trub. half a pack would probably be fine as well, especially if you rehydrate first which would be advised. its really only something I do to be safe, as I said I had a few duds, most people would probably say it's not necessary

[James P]

Lagering has the same problem. My traditional lagers get 6~8 weeks in secondary, and they can take up to three months to carb up in a bottle. I have found there is always enough yeast to carbonate, just takes bloody ages!

[Simon David kelly]

I had planned on leaving it in the bottle to mature for 3 months after bottling ... I hadn't planned on the chilling phase, which will require a fridge from somewhere.

I think I may use this as an opportunity for experimentation. 1/2 the bottle o'natural and the other 1/2 with a few grains of extra S04 each. Both 1/2's with 3 priming tabs.

Thoughts?

[Soren]

i haven't used the tabs for a while but from memory 3 seems to be too much for an imperial stout, at least i don't think this style should be overcarbonated, i'd probably stick with.... otherwise, go for the experimentation, that's why we brew:) you could do some with 2 and some with 3 and see what you like...

[Simon David kelly]

Good idea ... as long as I don't get bottle bombs :o)

[Mike Neilson]

What are you bottling them into? 750 brew craft bottles or 500ml - 750ml Glass?

If you are using 750ml Do Not!!! put 2 or even 3 into the bottles put 1 or even better use 2 grams per litre of Table sugar boil in a little water or 100mls than tip into you bottling bucket or calculate solution mls needed per bottle and syringe into bottle. There is nothing worse than a RIS that is over carbed you lose all silkyness. I have one at the moment that I carbed with one drop per 500mls and it way over carbed. method here is less is more with RIS as they can carb by them selves as there is just so much sugar!!

[James P]

I have to agree with Mike, the carbo drops are good if you want to make a fizzy beer. I would check the carbonating tool here: Bottle and Bulk Priming Calculator. I used this for bulk priming all my beers before kegging, and beersmith.

[Ally Mcg]

I'd agree with James and Mike. 3 drops per bottle sounds like way to much for an RIS. One sounds about right, or 2-3g of sugar per litre.

I brewed an RIS a a month or so ago and carb'd that to 1.8 volumes using 2g of sugar per litre and its velvety smooth. Less is more when it comes to carbing a stout I'd say