Adding DME to Secondary Fermentation

[cdelap]

Last weekend I invited a buddy to help with a Dopplebock, so far it seems to be doing well. I told him that I would be transferring it to secondary on Monday to pull it off the trub. His response was that he was going to pick up DME and add it to the secondary per his "uncles" advice. While I have used DME to boost my OG and for bottling I have never just added it to secondary. I assume this will dry the beer out a bit which I don't think I want to do with a Dopplebock unless it finished abnormally high (last nights reading was 1.021) which is just about where I wanted it.

Is there any other reason he would be telling us to do this?

Would I actually want to do this?

 

[Gear101]

That would wrok to dry the beer out and up the ABV, but the question that I would like to ask you is there something wrong with the beer that makes you think this needs to be done?

 

[cdelap]

No not at all, I had told him I didn't see any reason to do it, but figured I better see if there was a reason to add it that I was unaware of.

Wort tasted great so far am looking forward to transferring this one being finished!!

 

[Yooper]

I think the theory is that adding fermentables will kick up some fermentation to produce co2 to "protect" the beer in secondary.

There are two issues I see with that. First, the purpose of a "secondary" is for a clearing vessel. If you're restarting fermentation, you'll just have more crud to settle out. Second, with a dopplebock, I'm assuming it's a lager. If so, you do NOT want more fermentation. You want to do a diacetyl rest and make sure fermentation is finished before racking to a secondary and lagering.

I think adding more DME is a mistake. It's probably a holdover from the old "secondary fermentation" ideas from the earlier days of homebrewing.

 

[Gear101]

OK I am not saying that it can't be done, I have done it in the past with honey, DME, LME etc etc. But I was just playing around with stuff, but I have found if there is nothing wrong with the way I brewed the beer, not to play with it.

Cheers and enjoy

 

[cdelap]

I think adding more DME is a mistake. It's probably a holdover from the old "secondary fermentation" ideas from the earlier days of homebrewing.

This Is what I was thinking, he does alot of stuff much different than me, we both prefer our own beer over each others and that's one of the great things about homebrew, we get to make what we want.

if there is nothing wrong with the way I brewed the beer, not to play with it.

Cheers and enjoy

This is exactly what I thought, but one of my favorite parts about Hombrew is the fact that there are endless chances to learn and develop new techniques.

Thanks for all your help!!

 

[sweetcell]

That would wrok to dry the beer out

i'm pretty sure that adding DME will not dry out the beer.

simple sugars dry out beer because they ferment out almost completely to acohol and little else, so you're not adding any flavors. DME isn't simple sucrose, it's complex maltose - thus it leaves behind, well, maltiness.

DME in primary doesn't dry out beer, in fact it makes the beer. why would it be any different in secondary?

my take: adding DME to secondary does indeedn raise ABV, but it will add flavor too. it'll bury the hops a bit unless you add some to your boiled DME (you were planning on boiling it first, right?)

 

[cdelap]

my take: adding DME to secondary does indeedn raise ABV, but it will add flavor too. it'll bury the hops a bit unless you add some to your boiled DME (you were planning on boiling it first, right?)

I'm not planing on adding anything samples at hydro readings have tasted great therefor no need for change

as yooper explained the person telling me to do this most likely was trying to create a co2 layer to shield the beer in secondary, however this also prevents the beer from clearing up, I always rack into a Carboy purged with co2 so as far as I can see there is no benefit to adding any dme