adding vodka to secondary

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Ztp

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I transferred a beer into my secondary a couple of weeks ago, the SG was 1.012, OG 1.052. I had a couple of cinnamon sticks soaking in (about) 3 shots of vodka and just dumped them in w/ the vodka. Just drew a hydro sample today and the gravity is now 1.006. Do you think that vodka could drop the gravity that much or is something else going on here? little less than a 4 gallon batch btw. The vodka is 80 proof
 
The cinnamon might've kicked in fermentation again. I've had dry hops do that for a short time when first dumped in for a few hours.
 
Cinnamon isn't going to kick start your fermentation or lower the gravity. When a object such as a cinnamon stick or dry hops are placed into a recently fermented beer, it will provide nucleation points and force CO2 out of solution. It might look like fermentation, but there isn't any going on... its just dissolved co2 coming out of solution. The vodka may marginally drop it, but such a small volume in the big volume of your batch isn't going to do much.

I'm guessing your fermentation wasn't complete when you took the first gravity reading. Alternatively, you could be working with a hydrometer that hasn't been calibrated and is inaccurate.
 
I don't think there's that much co2 in solution to go for a few hours. Mine didn't til I'd have a stable FG & dry hopped it. A little dissolved co2,but not that much to lower the FG by .001 After a stable reading was had.
 
Ok thanks. I didn't know if someone actually had done some sort of an experiment just to see. I figured the transition may have stirred the yeast enough to kick em back in but I wasn't sure. I just thought that was an awful big drop from the amount I had put in there
 
Yeah,I got curious about it once,so I did an extra hydrometer test. It was stable at 1.011,a bit lower than the usual 1.012 for a pale ale as I do it. After the dry hop,it was 1.010. Just thought it'd be interesting.
 
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