Although I am running way ahead of schedule, I have been considering making a partial grain/extract coffee/chocolate porter in a couple months from now... Extract/Grain/Hop/Yeast bill below: 4 lb Alexander's Dark Extract - Boil 3.3 lb Munton's Dark LME - Boil 1 lb Briess Chocolate 350 - Steep 1 lb Chocolate Malt (US) - Steep 60 min 0.500 Challenger ~ pellet 7.5 (AA%) » 14.6 (IBU) 30 min 0.500 Challenger ~ pellet 7.5 » 11.2 15 min 0.500 Willamette ~ pellet 5.5 » 5.3 5 min 0.500 Willamette ~ pellet 5.5 » 2.1 OG: 1.052 (12.9 deg Plato) FG: 1.013 (3.3 deg Plato) ABV: 5.2% - Post Kahlua primer ??? ~7% Color 50 deg SRM (Jet black) Total IBU 33.3 Pre-Boil: 6 Gal (ish) Post Boil: 5 Gal (ish) I'm still considering what I'd like to use for secondary... (Chocolate, Coffee, etc...) What I would like to know is how much Kahlua should I use for bottle conditioning? The way I see it, I should be using somewhere around 4oz of sugar to properly condition 5 gallons of beer. According to Yahoo Answers - http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070416074756AAegHuw Kahluah, How much sugar in it? 11.2 grams of sugar and 11.3 grams of carbs - in a 1 oz. serving Source(s):http://www.drinksmixer.com/desc292.html If there are 11.2 grams of sugar in a 1 oz serving of Kahlua and there are 113.398g in 4oz 113.398g/11.2g=10.125oz Am I safe to assume that I should be able to use about (10oz to a bottle) of Kahlua as a primer? Anyone else have experience using Kahlua as a priming sugar? If so, how'd it turn out and how much did you use?
My concern with this is that you are basing the amount you're going to add on the amount of sugar you need for priming and not on the right amount for the flavor you want. Kahlua is coffee, rum, and sugar so why not add coffee and rum until you get the degree of flavor you want, then prime as normal with sugar?
I like this approach because I have similar concerns; I would worry that in an effort to hit the right carbonation level or coffee level, things might get too boozey. On the other hand, Mosher talks about using liqueur for priming in Radical Brewing. I can't say I've read about it much here on the forum.
Yes, if you want just want to experiment and see how it turns out. No, if you have a particular flavor in mind that you'll be disappointed to not realize.
Ditch the Dark DME & LME. Get your color from mashing/steeping roasted grains and crystal malts, as you never know whats in the Dark LME/DME. Re the Kahlua, get the coffee flavor from dry beaning your beer with coffee beans and instead of rum, add D2 or tubinado/muscovado sugar to pick up some rummy notes, and then prime with D1 or D2 Candi syrup to get some extra richness (use a priming calculator).
Glad to have received a lot of votes on the poll... Looks like I'll be avoiding my adventurous aspiration for using Kahlua as my primer. I will lean more towards a Reinheitsgebot rationalism while brewing this beer.
I used Kahlua in a porter with good effect a few years ago, but never considered priming with anything other than corn/table sugar...even those are a crap shoot sometimes.
Another suggestion: try using it to prime just a few bottles. You'll need to estimate exactly how much from internet or experimental research. Then take the first few bottles from the bottling bucket before adding the priming sugar and primer with your Kaluha. Then add priming sugar to prime the rest of the bucket normally. This way you get to experiment and you don't take on the risk of messing up an entire batch.
