What I’ve done in the past is use ONLY a fresh coconut. In fact, I use 2 of them for a 5 gallon batch. It’s just barley enough coconut to come through though, so start with that, and maybe add more in a later batch. I think I’m going to bump up to 2.5 or maybe 3.
Anyway, crack the coconut, take the meat off of the shell in as big of pieces as possible. I use a hand shredder, like for making hash browns, and shred it all up. Spread it out on a cookie sheet as thin as possible, and bake it in the oven on a low temp until it’s toasted. Then add this to a secondary conditioning vessel. I usually let mine sit 2-3 weeks like this. The coconut floats at first, then sinks later. When you rack, you can use a cheese cloth to filter out the flakes, but I usually just rack into the keg and be very careful. I have had some of the flakes get stuck in the post on my keg though.
