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!

WhatsOnTap said:

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!

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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

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...?

I have dryhopped with 0.5-1oz in 5g, so I would say 0.25-0.5oz would be good for 2.5g. David's experiment sounds interesting...dry hop with a different variety in each secondary. Or dry hop with one variety, but in varying amounts.

I've always just heaved the hops in...never sterilized, never had any problems from hops. Leafs will float and pellets will sink...either way they can be avoided when you rack for bottling. With leaf hops I'll affix a sterilized hop bag around my racking cane to keep 'em out.

WhatsOnTap said:

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...?

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thats how i do it, either way they are going to float for a day or so, then sink...Just dont 'stir' anything, that will introduce oxygen and that is not good...

Dont stir it, put in the hops and siphon right on top. Dont stir it