Adding to secondary

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

tjstromquist

Active Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2005
Messages
26
Reaction score
0
I have a batch of Honey Brown Ale that was brewed on 11/25. I moved it to the secondary about on or around Dec 2nd. I have 2 questions:

1. What should the temp be for the secondary? It has been sitting in my storage area where the temp is between 61-64. Is this too cold?

2. I took out a sample today to taste and it seems to missing something, not sure what. What would happen if I were to add some honey (not sure how much) or what would be the effect if I added a vanilla bean? Any suggestions to as if this is a good idea or not?

This is to be a Christmas gift for some relatives so I want it to be good.
Thanks for the advice.
 
Anything you add to the secondary MUST be sanitised, by either boiling in about 1/2 pint of water or soaking in vodka for a few hours.

What's the taste like? I assume you were looking for a sweet honey "twang" in the taste?
 
I was looking for more of that honey taste, it's not there yet, maybe a another 2 weeks in the secondary will do. It just tastes a little off, doesn't taste bad, just not what I was expecting

What would be the advantage of adding Malto Dextrin
 
I would add to the bottling stage correct? If so how much? Where can I get it? Can I get from Northern Brewer?
 
tjstromquist said:
I would add to the bottling stage correct? If so how much? Where can I get it? Can I get from Northern Brewer?
I've never heard of it being added at bottling...I always boil it with the wort. But, it's unfermentable, so I guess there wouldn't be any reason why you couldn't boil some with your priming sugar and add it to the bottling bucket.

For a honey brown tho, I'm not sure if you really need it...the samples always seem thin and weak before carbonation. If you were to try some, I wouldn't use over 4 ounces, and I would imagine that adding this late could cause some clarity problems, if that's an issue for you.

Yes, you can get it from Northern Brewer.
 
Vanilla is normally a good addition to a Brown, but I think it would clash with the honey. I suppose you could use honey for priming.
 
I know that sanitation is important throughout the brewing process. But when I started brewing and had a lot of sanitation concerns I was told by multiple sources that by the time your beer is in the secondary, the alcohol content is high enough that the antiseptic properties of the alcohol made the beer nearly unspoilable. Sure, it's always good policy to play it safe. But it seems that boiling honey, for example, could be a messy endeavor. Wouldn't he be safe to just toss the honey in?

Another example: fresh fruit can't be boiled and it can be added to secondary without worries. I know some who recommend campden tablets but I've never used them and never had trouble. Maybe I'm just lucky . . .

AHU
 
AllHoppedUp said:
I know that sanitation is important throughout the brewing process. But when I started brewing and had a lot of sanitation concerns I was told by multiple sources that by the time your beer is in the secondary, the alcohol content is high enough that the antiseptic properties of the alcohol made the beer nearly unspoilable. Sure, it's always good policy to play it safe. But it seems that boiling honey, for example, could be a messy endeavor. Wouldn't he be safe to just toss the honey in?

Another example: fresh fruit can't be boiled and it can be added to secondary without worries. I know some who recommend campden tablets but I've never used them and never had trouble. Maybe I'm just lucky . . .

AHU

Using honey (or even fruit) without some sort of sanitizing ritual would make me worry about introducing bacteria or wild yeasts to the mix.

When you consider that various yeast strains can work in an environment that can approach 20% alcohol by volume, and a 'typical' beer is somewhere around 5%, I would not, for one single second, consider beer in the secondary to be 'unspoilable'. Some strains of yeast can eat sugar chains that brewers yeast cannot, so wild yeast can initiate a whole second round of fermentation and provide tastes that you do not want in your beer.

Furthermore, bacteria can turn an alcoholic beverage into vinegar EASILY.

I'm glad you havenot had any issues, but I think that adding fruit or honey directly to the fermenter with no sanitizing is a spoiled batch waiting to happen.

my $0.02.

-walker
 
Back
Top