TheMerkle
Well-Known Member
I decided to try a chocolate cherry stout, by brewing a Duck Rabbit milk stout clone recipe and secondarying on cherries, and finally adding Godiva liquor in the keg. The mash went flawlessly: despite being my first true all grain recipe we were able to hit high efficiency and nail the target OG. The problem arised when our previously tried and true (in the winter) CFC failed to handle this Florida summer heat. I did some reading and found several suggestions that I was better off pitching at 95 rather than letting the beer sit overnight. I have a chest freezer and was given the impression that, if set a bit lower than the target temp, it would cool the fermenting beer quickly. WRONG. This thing chugged ferociously, maintaining a 94 degree beat inside the 50 degree cooler for about thirty hours. Thirty hours is all it took for airlock activity to completely cease. The yeast is wlp004 Irish... should I let this thing sit in primary for a few weeks, or just secondary it as soon as I've got a stable FG? ...or should I just dump this thing and try again?