Guys and gals,
Hi there,
I'm brand new here. I just caught glimpse of this thread and thought I'd chime in. While I am insanely new to cheese making, I would like to think that I am an accomplished brewer. My close friend and I are 40 batches deep in a competition project that we are hopeful will yield some winning results for us this year. As far as the chocolate stout goes. My advice to a beginner is to go ahead and bottle the entire batch. Kegging is wonderful, but in my opinion it is a certainty that you will indeed want to one day bottle your beer. We have a twin keg setup and we keep an American Stout on tap at all times. I can say that for your chocolate stout (depending on starting gravity and target ABV) that bottle aging it is a superb way to enjoy the fruits of your labor. My advice (as a newbie to this forum I realize) is to go ahead and enjoy a couple of your young beers the moment you believe them to be ready. After you have experienced the thrill of your your efforts. Don't touch another one for two months. Then you will truly come to understand the value in aging a fine ale. Stouats are not like Corona (as I'm sure you're well aware). they don't fight degradation from the word go. Provided you store them properly out of direct light and the temperature doesn't exceed about 74 degrees or so, you should be enjoying a fine aged stout in a few months. It's like a black and white difference between the "green" beer and the true finished product.
Best wishes. Feel free to ask me about brewing whenever you'd like...
- Jacob