Coconut, primary or keg? Sanitise?

[stz]

Hello HBT.

I am going to brew a triple chocolate stout for christmas. I intend to split hte batch and keg one as a coconut vanilla.

I would like to toast and add the coconut to primary near the end of fermentation. Reason being I leave all the junk in the fermenter and get maximum beer in keg. My concern is insufficient contact time/extraction. On the other extreme is bagged in a 300 micron bag and added to keg. My concern is it takes up space in the keg, I can't see if it is floating and drying out at the top and the potential to block the dip tube.

Anybody know how long it takes for the beer to fully extract the coconut flavour and is primary worth it or a waste? I wouldn't want to leave it in primary if it takes weeks and weeks.

 

[LLBeanJ]

Assuming a 5-6 gallon batch...

Toss 8 oz toasted coconut in the boil with 5-10 min remaining
Toss another 8 oz into primary 5-7 days before kegging
Toss another 8 oz into the keg and leave it there

I'd use sanitized hop sacks for the ferm and keg additions and put some sort of weight in them (marbles or a ss pipe fitting work well).

 

[AkTom]

/\ this. I love my coconut ipa. Adding just to secondary won't give you much flavor.

 

[formula2fast]

I add coconut to the mash, the boil, and secondary. I also put in some coconut water during the boil and it comes out with amazing coconut flavor. I don't keg, so I can't comment on that, but I use a lot of coconut and it takes up a lot of space in my secondary. I usually leave it there for 2-3 weeks.

 

[stz]

I went with 600g in 22L for 10 days toasted and added without a bag near the end of primary (1-2 points off fg). It floated, but as I had sealed the fermenter at that point I could rock it twice a day to wet it to prevent any dry spots. Was very concerned about any infection/restarting fermentation so was mindful of letting off a little gas every day or so in case it wanted to explode, but pretty confident after a couple of days it was stable. Two day cold crash close to freezing and it sank out fine. Used flake so it was just a case of racking near the heap and tilting the fermenter near the end to get the last of the beer. Went into a purged kegged and then force carbed. Has a lot of coconut flavour. Head retention is fine, wonder if I left the fats in FV because of the cold crash? Would want more with less, but not more really!

Recipe if interested.

1% roast
2% black
10% chocolate
4% light crystal
4% dark crystal
8% flaked oats
8% flaked barley
61% pale ale malt

Chloride 140ppm Sulphate 55ppm.
Sparge water treated to bring alkalinity down to 70ppm, mash was left at 110ppm to give target pH.

OG of 56. PG of 16-17. Mashed at 68C.
47IBU from a 60m addition of magnum.
Lactose at flame out for a total of 6-7 points so SG 63 with FG 22.

4 day ferment with 50:50 so4:us05 at 19C. Added 8g/L toasted cocoa nibs, 28g/L toasted coconut and two chopped vanilla pods. 8 days held at 19C then 2 days at 0C. Kegged with 25ml of chocolate extract.