help using chocolate extract in an Irish Stout

The kit didnt come with instructions or given weights? Weird. You can get the recipe at Northernbrewer.com or pretty much any homebrew website as far as the Irish Stout recipe/weights. As for adding the chocolate extract, I think adding it to at the time of bottling would work. The only problem is you wont really know how much you will need, and I would taste it before I put the chocolate extract in it, you might not even want to put it in. When I first started out I was putting all kinds of stuff in my beers. I cant tell you how many of them were virtually undrinkable. I wish I would have just followed the directions word for word.

 

I haven't used chocolate extract but I once used coconut extract and did a few different concentrations. The one I liked best was one drop of extract added to each bottle. Extract doesn't need to sit on a beer at all to impart its flavor but depending on the extraction method, it could affect the stability of the foam. So I think adding it to the bottle is the best way to go and try to use alcohol based extract instead of oil based.

 

The bottom line is you can do this from the end of the boil to a drop in the bottom of each glass you pour. I've done two batches of Irish stout with that Irish cream extract. Both times I added directly to the bottling bucket. One was just right, and the other overpowered the beer and made it taste sort of like soda. I'd add half, taste, and add the other half while working with your bottling bucket. A VERY gentle stir after each half is added. You should stir your sugar up just a touch, so this is part of my bottling process anyway. Once you add this, you cannot take it out. If you throw half the bottle away to make the perfect beer, you should do that instead of overdosing. Vanilla is welcome here too.

 

If you want to do as Ssam has suggested you can do a split batch very easily this way. You can bottle the base beer this way without extract in some bottles and see how much of a difference there is. Hell, you could do a few more with 2 drops, 4 drops, and just write the number on top of the bottle cap.

 

You can also just add it at pouring time, if you're worried about fucking up the entire batch. Personally, I'd get some guiness, add a drop or two, and see if you like it. It may be gawdawful, it may be bliss. But if you're worried, just add it to taste whenever you're having a beer.

 

You really don't need to transfer this beer to secondary at all. Unfortunately, kit instructions haven't quite caught up with current common practice.

 

It's debatable/marginal. The most important thing happening is gravity over time, which doesn't need a secondary to happen.

You'll probably introduce more O2 by transferring than you will by letting it sit in the bucket for a few more days. You can just leave it for a few days after FG is reached to give the yeast time to clean up their byproducts and settle out, then bottle.

 

You could always cold crash to help with clarity, but I agree that for this particular batch secondary isnt needed. Carboys are good for if you made a really big beer that you want to age a bit before bottling/kegging etc. Also, you might want to use secondary for lighter beers to help with clarity and dry hop. Thats really the only reason Ive ever used a secondary.

 

For a stout, I wouldn't bother. Cold crashing is reducing the temperature after fermentation to encourage yeast to settle out.

 

Once you bottle you want to raise the temp to around 70 to encourage carbonation. If its very much colder than that, it either won't carbonate or will take forever.

Sometimes when people cold crash they add more yeast during bottling because they think all the yeast dropped out of suspension. I am inclined to disagree but I don't have any experience bottling cold crashed beer so I am not sure. But like Vikeman said, you don't need to cold crash.