Secondary experimentations...
 

Well, my American Pale Ale is bubbling away, leaving me to think up ways I can experiment when I rack to secondary.

Here's the deal: I have 2 food-grade 3.5 gal. buckets that I drilled to fit airlocks. That means I make two batches from my primary (5 gal.) at 2.5 gal each. I was hoping to leave one batch as-is, and maybe add something to the other to make two different batches. Is there something you guys would reccomend adding to an APA in the secondary for "special effects"?

I would dry hop it...APA's are great beers to dry hop. In the future you could try a wheat and add things like fruit or herbs to one batch, or make a stout/porter and add a vanilla bean to one batch.

Dry hop with two different hops: Cascade and Fuggles/EKG would be my choices.

i'd go for the dry hop too.

Hop it!!!!

Hop it, try a cooler secondary temp on one of them, depending on what type of yeast you used it may give you differant results.

Survey says: HOPS! I'll definately do that then. That will give it a great nose with no added bitterness? Couple more questions - how do you dry hop, how much (for 2.5 gal.), and how do you keep it sterile? Thanks!;)

dry hop
 

just dump in some pellets into your secondary...i would use at least an ounce for 5 gallons, and as far as sterile, hops are a natural preservative that as far as i know, dont have alot of bacteria or yeast 'hanging' out on them. just be carefull not to introduce any nasties by way of the bag the hops come in, (i.e. just gently let the hops pour into the carboy, dont try to get every last hop dust particle out of the bag by shaking or tapping it)or your hands of course!, i wear sterilized surgicall gloves when touching anything that comes near the beer.

If your using pellets I would pound them into powder before adding them. You will cover more area and they wont be in the way when you bottle:D

Alright, so should I put them in the secondary first and siphon on top of them to stir them up a bit? Or am I thinking too much...?