Priming sugar and stout.

[Celiacbrew]

I picked up a stout kit from Everwoodavebrewshop.com tonight and I plan to break from the directions a little. I want to carbonate the beer like a Guinness draft would be and then use a syringe to give it the characteristic head of a stout poured from a stout tap. Does anyone have experience doing this with a stout? How many volumes of CO2 should I be aiming for?

[mr x]

I'm not sure what you are trying to do here...have you seen this before somewhere?

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

[redoubt]

X, my guess is Celiacbrew is thinking of doing something like this (scroll down to "Dosing your Beer"):

https://byo.com/stories/item/743-head-games" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



CB, everywhere I've looked says Guiness draft has about 1-1.2 vols CO2. I don't know if / how the process you're thinking of will require any changes to those levels. I've never done what you're planning to do, but it sounds like an easy and interesting solution to the no-stout-tap issue. Might be tempted to try this myself sometime.


Kirsten

[redoubt]

I guess I could just quote the relevant portion so y'all don't have to follow links...

The technique is exceedingly simple. Pour your homebrew into a glass, leaving an inch or two of headroom. Use the syringe to suck up some beer. Lift the syringe out of the beer and draw the plunger up a little more, until you have drawn an equal amount of air over the beer inside the syringe. You want a 50-50 beer-to-air ratio, but remember this is not rocket science.

Now, keeping the syringe above the surface of the beer, shoot it all back into the glass in one quick motion. Sit back and watch the bubble show. You will see that all-familiar dance, waves of bubbles rising from the bottom of the glass, forming a creamy, dense, nitrogen-seeded head. It’s a sight. One of humanity’s great stress reducers after a hard day at the office.

Is that what you had in mind CB?

-Kirsten

[GuingesRock]

Clever! ...air is 80% nitrogen. An alternative to having a nitrogen faucet?

[Celiacbrew]

Is that what you had in mind CB?

-Kirsten

Thats exactly what I am hoping to do. Guiness used to have an ultrasound do the same thing too. You can buy those on ebay but I figured the syringe trick would be easier.

Here is a video of the ultrasonic initator in action in case anyone is interested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFhI4fo5yQ0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and a video of the syringe trick. It gives you an idea of what to do although she seems to have gone too far with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XvbA34HVNM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So I will bottle my Everwood Oatmeal Stout with around a 1/6 of a cup of sugar. I might go with a little more just to be sure I get enough CO2 in solution.

Thanks

[Celiacbrew]

I've been doing this with my stout the last couple of bottles and it works great. I changed the technique a little from what was described in that BYO article. I'm using a four ml syringe that you use to give medicine to a baby. I draw about 1.5mls of air into the syringe and then draw in some beer. Then instead of shooting the mix from above the beer I put the tip under the surface and give it one hard shot. I try to hit the bottom of my glass with one hard shot. If I miss the bottom I get a tiny little head and have to do it again. If I do it right I get the full cascade of bubbles from top to bottom and about 1-1.5 fingers of foam.

[GuingesRock]

Mike, You might be interested in a talk by the "Pope of Foam" http://beersmith.com/blog/2011/09/28/he ... odcast-23/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[GasMD30]

I've been doing this with my stout the last couple of bottles and it works great. I changed the technique a little from what was described in that BYO article. I'm using a four ml syringe that you use to give medicine to a baby. I draw about 1.5mls of air into the syringe and then draw in some beer. Then instead of shooting the mix from above the beer I put the tip under the surface and give it one hard shot. I try to hit the bottom of my glass with one hard shot. If I miss the bottom I get a tiny little head and have to do it again. If I do it right I get the full cascade of bubbles from top to bottom and about 1-1.5 fingers of foam.

Thanks so much for the update! You've rekindled my desire to make a dry stout of Irish persuasion!