24 May 2010

"Brown Magic" moved to Secondary Fermenter

After nine days in the primary fermenter, I was seeing basically no activity in the airlock, and a large amount of trub had settled out of the beer.  I decided it was time to move it to the secondary fermenter to let fermentation finish over the next couple weeks without adding off flavors from the piles of dead yeast cells.

I didn't take an initial specific gravity measurement, so I couldn't quantify how much it's fermented at this point.  I pulled a couple ounces off the siphon for a taste test, and there's no sweetness left, so most of those sugars are probably fermented.  I have mixed feelings about the flavor so far -- it's got a lot of coffee and roasted flavors coming through, with more hop bite than a typical stout, but still far less than what I would think of as an IPA.  I noticed little to no hops aroma from the finishing Cascade hops, although I'm hoping that's chalked up to the head cold I was suffering at the time.  I'm interested to see how it turns out at bottling time.

2 comments:

  1. i am very excited about this beer as i am a stout/porter kind of guy (and obsessed with the Stone varieties to boot). whats the ETA?

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  2. It's ready to bottle, I just haven't had the time. I've got another brew coming down the pike that needs to be moved into that fermenter in a week, so I'll probably bottle at the end of next week, and it'll be ready to drink a week or so after that. I'll keep you posted.

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