When to bottle after secondary racking?

Hi all-

I recently racked a Bourbon Barrel Porter to the secondary. I purchased the kit from northern brewer (can be found here http://www.northernbrewer.com/specialtybeers.html).

When I racked, I added some oak cubes and Maker's Mark bourbon. The kit instructions say to let it age for two months or so. Do I let it age in the secondary, or do I at some time bottle it, and let it age in the bottles?

Any recommendations anyone has I'd appreciate.

Thanks for any help!

-Chris

taste a sample each week until the oak is where you like it,then bottle and condition

If you can afford to have the carboy sitting full for a couple/few months, I would bulk condition it. I do all my porters and stouts this way, and I think they age much better in the secondary than in the bottle. I am not certain why this would be, but I have heard people claim that it is because you have more yeast per volume of beer in the fermenter, which makes sense. Anyways, it works for me so I do it religiously now. The only down-side is that you tie-up a carboy or keg while it is aging.

Can you use a food grade plastic pail as your secondary or do you need a glass carboy. My friends Dad works as Kellogs and is going to bring a bunch of extra buckets home.

FlyGuy said:

If you can afford to have the carboy sitting full for a couple/few months, I would bulk condition it. I do all my porters and stouts this way, and I think they age much better in the secondary than in the bottle. I am not certain why this would be, but I have heard people claim that it is because you have more yeast per volume of beer in the fermenter, which makes sense. Anyways, it works for me so I do it religiously now. The only down-side is that you tie-up a carboy or keg while it is aging.

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What exactly do you mean by "Bulk Condition?" Just let it sit in the carboy for a month or two before actually bottling it?

Thanks for the responses everyone! Much appreciated.

chris21274 said:

What exactly do you mean by "Bulk Condition?" Just let it sit in the carboy for a month or two before actually bottling it?

Thanks for the responses everyone! Much appreciated.

Click to expand...

Yes, exactly - but in a secondary fermenter, not the primary. And you do really want to use a glass carboy or plastic better bottle. I wouldn't trust a bucket to keep oxygen out of your beer, and that is a must.

Great! Thanks for the tip. I figured the longer I kept it in the secondary glass carboy the better chance that'll it condition properly.

So how would you go about bottling it? Same as always, add the priming sugar, etc and let it sit for another couple weeks to allow it to carbonate?

Yep, pretty much the same routine. The only difference is that you should actually try to suck up a bit of yeast off the bottom of the carboy when you rack to your bottling bucket because most of it has fallen out of the beer. If it is a higher alcohol brew, it also won't hurt to add a half package of dry yeast to your bottling bucket (before you rack) just in case the yeast in the carboy isn't up to the job of carbonation.

Regardless, you may have to give these bottles a good 2-3 weeks at 70 - 75F to carbonate fully. Since they are already aged, they are pretty much ready to drink right after carbonation!

Sweet! Thanks again.

I'm looking forward to this one for sure! I'll let you know how it turns out. If we remember this thread!