adding boost of malt extract to secondary

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gfd622

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Hey all,

I know the point of a secondary, and have been brewing for almost a year now (with a lot of batches under my belt, some good some bad, but getting the hang of things). I'm getting to the level now where I want to deal with 2 issues, clarity and alcohol content.

For clarity, I think my biggest problem is that I want to maximize my yield, and so I always take down all the way to the bottom of my fermenter. I'm going to try gelatin this batch to see how much that improves on the clarity while still being greedy. In the end, I probably just need to give up a bottle or two, but we'll see.

For alcohol content, I'm thinking of adding a DME boost to the secondary. I'll do all the proper things (basically the same way you add malt when you bottle, I just add about a pound or so). That should get the yeast revitalized and add some extra fermentable sugars to increase alcohol content. I always have bubbling at rates that are characteristic of most recipies. Worse case, I'll need to rack to a third fermenter, but I really don't think so (purpose of secondary should still work).

Do others add some sort of malt boost to the secondary fermenter? Also, is there something I'm missing here on this one? Maybe I should transfer to the secondary earlier in the process. I have found that the 1,2,3 rule works well, but I could make the 1 less, and let the 2 still be when the original 2 would have been done (so it's in primary less and secondary more, but the whole process is around 3 weeks). Does that sound right?

To give you an idea, I think I'm like many people here. My job is a biochemistry professor, so I've grown a lot of bacteria/yeast during my career. I haven't done it for alcohol content I admit (until recently that is), but it seems to me that this would work well. Just wondering what others think.

Thanks much.

Dave
 
I don't think this will hurt anything, it would be worth a shot. Some people do this with larger beers to keep from overwhelming the yeast with a super high initial gravity.

If you just want to boost ABV a bit I'd use sugar though. Dextrose will ferment clean and not effect the flavor.

If you add a sizable amount of DME to a recipe it will change the taste, so make sure you account for that when you first brew.

Since the DME isn't boiled you won't get a hot break, which is supposed to help with clearing, this might cause clarity issues but I wouldn't fret it.

It should work fine if you use common sense, I just don't see the point. Brew the recipe as you like it and boost with something that ferments cleaner.
 
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