pitching 2nd yeast in 2ndary

anyone done this? is it effective in changing flavor profile? it will help drive down the garvity a couple more points, but what are the drawbacks?

I've wondered this too... or maybe transferring ALL of the primary, trub and all, to a secondary, just for the mixing up effect.

muddypuddle said:

anyone done this? is it effective in changing flavor profile? it will help drive down the garvity a couple more points, but what are the drawbacks?

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If fermentation is complete, then adding more yeast will do absolutely nothing. If there are no sugars left for the yeast to eat then they will just leave you with a nice "yeast bite" flavor profile.

Why do you feel you need to do this?

The thing to remember though is that if you are smelling or tasting something you don't like during fermentation not to worry.

During fermentation all manner of stinky stuff is given off (ask lager brewers about rotten egg/sulphur smells, or Apfelwein makers about "rhino farts,") like we often say, fermentation is often ugly AND stinky and PERFECTLY NORMAL.

It's really only down the line, AFTER the beer has been fermented (and often after it has bottle conditioned even,) that you concern yourself with any flavor issues if they are still there.

I think too many new brewers focus to much on this stuff too early in the beer's journey. And they panic unnecessarily.

A lot of the stuff you smell/taste initially more than likely ends up disappearing either during a long primary/primary & secondary combo, Diacetyl rests and even during bottle conditioning.

If I find a flavor/smell, I usually wait til it's been in the bottle 6 weeks before I try to "diagnose" what went wrong, that way I am sure the beer has passed any window of greenness.

Fementation is often ugly, smelly and crappy tasting in the beginning and perfectly normal. The various conditioning phases, be it long primary, secondarying, D-rests, bottle conditioning, AND LAGERING, are all part of the process where the yeast, and co2 correct a lot of the normal production of the byproducts of fermentation.

Lagering is a prime example of this. Lager yeast are prone to the production of a lot of byproducts, the most familiar one is sulphur compounds (rhino farts) but in the dark cold of the lagering process, which is at the minimum of a month (I think many homebrewers don't lager long enough) the yeast slowly consumes all those compounds which results in extremely clean tasting beers if done skillfully.

Ales have their own version of this, but it's all the same.

If you are sampling your beer before you have passed a 'window of greeness" which my experience is about 3-6 weeks in the bottle, then you are more than likely just experiencing an "off flavor" due to the presence of those byproducts (that's what we mean when we say the beer is "green" it's still young and unconditioned.) but once the process is done, over 90% of the time the flavors/smells are gone.

Of the remaining 10%, half of those may still be salvageable through the long time storage that I mention in the Never dump your beer!!! Patience IS a virtue!!! Time heals all things, even beer:

Long story short....I betcha that smell/flavor will be long gone when the beer is carbed and conditioned.

Thanks for the reply Revvy.

This was not for covering up flavor. the beer is still in primary, has been for 12 days. the fermentation has lagged. it was a big beer- OG 1.090 and temps were low. I have used some down sleeping bags and carboy jacketes to raies the temps and fermentation is picking up. yesterday it was at 1.035 and will check again tomorrow.

Thanks