Today I brewed the Rum Runner Stout 1 gallon extract kit from Northern Brewer (last time ever ordering from them). The brew day was pretty straight forward, but I made one small (yuuuge) change. I added corn syrup. I'll explain. This is described as a high alcohol rum stout, and you can add a shot of Kracken in secondary. I figured I'd up the ABV so I added a small bottle of corn syrup when I was adding the fermebtables. Turns out it weighed 1.5 pounds. This is going to end up a 10-15% ABV beer. The SG was 1.140. I may still add a nip of Kracken if I can find it.

I saved the grains. I ended up with 2 cups of stout grains, packaged in the freezer. I'm going to try Brewer's bread soon. I'll use regular yeast even though I have a half pack of S-04 left over. I'll use that for the next brew day.





Celebratory beer from the keg, from brew day #1


Our mascot, Brewer

Good looking wort. Do you Keg or Bottle?

Cheers!

I keg the 5 gallon batches but I'll bottle the 1 gal batches

S-04 has an alcohol tolerance of 10%, but can poop out before that.  You likely would have to add additional yeast, like a champagne yeast or CBC-1, to bottle condition.  The problem is the beer would be at 1.06 or higher and the additional yeast could ferment so much that you end up with bottle bombs.  A secondary fermentation using champagne yeast or CBC-1 might not be a bad idea in this case.  I'd be real interested in hearing where the S-04 ends up for you.

I'll definitely have to keep checking my gravity and see where it levels out. This is what I'm looking at. How do I avoid bottle bombs? Just add the champagne yeast, let it finish fermenting and then bottle like normal with fizz drops?

Champagne yeast seems dangerous to use for bottling. Higher attenuation than the yeast you normally use, yes?

Yeah. This brew is all screwed up. I pitched S-04, S-05, and the Champagne yeast in it, and some yeast nutrient. As far as I can tell, it's sitting at about 10%. Its in secondary now with vanilla extract and a coffee pouch. I'm going to bottle it in about 4 champagne bottles then age forever.