secondary sugar added?

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andysat

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hi guys, this is my second post on site
been brewing for about 3 years and we have 5 others at work that hb. i was wondering when you ferment the second time do you add sugar? if so raw sugar or brewing sugar? can i add more than 180 gms to 23 litres? if i add more sugar can that alter the alc. vol.? if a secondary fermenter is used should i expect sediment in the fermenter and/or bottles?I have only ever bought kits and brew sugars to keep it easy>
many thanks in advance
not brewing at the moment,throughout winter, until spring.
have 5 batches to see me thru.
the equipment we use is coopers kits and sugars.
with a primary fermenter, can i add another kilo of sugar and yeast to a wort that has already fermented?
 
The typical use for a secondary is for clarification of the beer only. All the grain sugars are fermented out in the primary. If you add fermentable sugars to the secondary (either by adding fruit or sugar) what you are really doing is a second primary fermentation. After which, depending on what you are doing and how clear you want your beer, you might rack to a third fermenter to do the clarification.

Any additional sugar you add will increase your ABV.

If you add additional fermentables to your secondary, you will get another layer of dead yeast at the bottom of your carboy. If you bottle straight from there, you will have more sediment in your bottles as opposed to if you racked to a third carboy for clarification.
 
feedthebear said:
If you add fermentable sugars to the secondary (either by adding fruit or sugar) what you are really doing is a second primary fermentation. After which, depending on what you are doing and how clear you want your beer, you might rack to a third fermenter to do the clarification.

Wow! What an idea. I never thought of doing that. Not sure why you would want to as Orfy points out, but I wonder what the effect would be of adding a big shot of wort to a finished fermentation? I'm guessing that your attenuation of the first fermentation fermentables would be be greater causing a drier beer. Would have to re-hop as well I'm guessing as all the aroma would blow out on the second primary fermentation. Definitely would kick up the alcohol content and would definitely want to rack to a another fermenter after that mess was done. Has anyone ever tried this before?
 
Straight sugar I'd add in the brew kettle. But I don't think it would make much difference either way in terms of flavor.

More malt in the secondary is a new one on me. I always fruit my beer there.

I don't know what you would get by adding malt there. But it reminds me of the Speise method of carbonating beer though. With that method, the beer needs a longer conditioning time because of the green beer flavors added by the new malt.
 
Barleywines usually add malt along the way, a little at a time, to keep the gravity in a happy place for the yeast- they gradually add smaller amounts of strong, intense wort, until the alcohol level is high enough. Talk about difficult ABV computation!!!
 
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