Re-pitching in Secondary?

[MrMadChemist]

Hello homebrew crew,

I am making a maple bacon coffee porter base on a recipe found on a Northern Brewer site (http://www.northernbrewer.com/connect/2011/12/bacon-beer-part-2/). My OG started around 1.08 without the syrup addition. The packaging on the Wyeast 1056 says its good for a starting grav around 1.06. I know i'm splitting hairs here but no matter how long I primary and/or condition I cant seem to shake off the last couple of points to hit a final gravity of 1.01x.

I was wondering with this batch if you think I should split the batch after the first week or so into two secondaries and pitch a little more yeast? I would probably go back into a single carboy for a 3rd round of conditioning to get the second rounds yeast out from under the wort. I know all of these transfers bring cleanliness and bacteria into the lime light as a concern going between carboys. Im down for the extra effort if this double pitch will take some of the sweetness out of the wort and convert it to alcohol since i plan to add some maple syrup after the fermenting is done.

Thoughts and ideas?

Thanks,
Eric

 

[chickypad]

What is your actual gravity now? It looks like a lot of unfermentables in the recipe, a 1.080 porter may just be done in which case pitching more yeast isn't really going to help. At what temp did you mash? The beer is likely already pretty high gravity so not a hospitable environment, if you were going to try it I think you'd want to pitch a big healthy starter at high krausen. Not sure why you would split the batch up to do this. Adding maple syrup will kick in the fermentation again so you need to let that ferment out before bottling (unless you're using it as your bottling sugar).

Edit: re-reading your post, did you just pitch the single package with no starter? If so yeah, that could be the problem. Next time I'd pitch a big healthy starter and oxygenate well for a beer like this. Much easier to get a healthy fermentation from the start rather than trying to fix things later.

 

[MrMadChemist]

Thanks for responding. I just pitched the smack pack, no starter. Mashed at 158ish, just brewed yesterday so im sure its still around 1.075-1.080, bubbling quite violently right now. Im not huge on adding things to my beer post fermentation so i'm hesitant to add the syrup, coffee and bacon - bacon especially. There are a couple of schools of thought on the bacon, universally, you need to separate the fat from the meat. I think that by steeping the bacon flavor by extracting with a vodka or scotch ill be able to freeze the fat and keep my flavored liquor to add to the secondary but now we're adding yet another unfermentable to the mix.

Probably over complicating this beer but im gonna do it anyways so wish me luck!

Eric

 

[chickypad]

Now I'm confused, I thought you said you were having trouble getting the gravity down but you just brewed it? Are you saying you brewed it in the past and couldn't hit the supposed target? In that case what was the actual FG? That recipe mashed at 158 with an OG of 1.080 and just a single smack pack - I would expect it to finish above 1.020. If you want to target a lower gravity you can try mashing lower, then as I mentioned oxygenate well and pitch a nice big starter. Can't really comment on the bacon, frankly it sounds disgusting, but that's the beauty of homebrew right? To each his own.

 

[RM-MN]

I'm not sure why you want to rack the beer into secondary, then on to tertiary to get it off the yeast. Yeast is what eats the sugars which lowers the final gravity. Moving the beer also gives bacteria a chance to get started. Leave it in the primary until it is done.

 

[kombat]

I made a Bacon Smoked Porter once. It did not work.

It was a Smoked Porter (based on Beehive Brewery's Robust Porter recipe, actually) that I added chopped up, cooked bacon to in the secondary. The oil/fat in the bacon completely robbed the beer of any head retention ability, and gave the beer a slick, oily mouthfeel that's quite off-putting. But it was just an experiment on a 1 gallon batch, it was worth a try.