Brown Ale Secondary Fermentation

[lucasxp]

Hey guys,

My Brown Ale is about 5 days into primary fermentation, the airlock is barely bubbling anymore, should I wait another week to transfer to secondary? Also, I heard honey goes really well with this type of beer, does anyone advice adding honey to the secondary?

Thanks for the help!!:rockin:

 

[Fursty007]

does anyone advise adding honey to the secondary?:

I would not advise adding fermentables like honey to the secondary. But that may just be me

 

[Jayslay]

Probably too late now, but I wouldnt bother even thinking about a secondary until your primary is finished. Secondly, there is no point in racking a brown ale to a secondary fermentor/carboy. You arn't fruiting, dry-hopping, oaking. And I doubt you need to clear a brown ale... Secondary fermentors are not quite as important as kit beer instructions make it seem.

An exception is if you need to free up your primary for another beer!

 

[lucasxp]

I'm going to add hazelnut to the secondary, otherwise I would just leave it in primary.

I made the mistake of transferring too soon and now it's barely fermenting :/ lesson learned for sure! I will have to wait another week or two to bottle now.

Thanks for the tip guys!

 

[IvanTheTerribrew]

I'd wait until primary is finished. Once it is.. I would bring enough water to dissolve the honey you want to add to about 160* and keep it around there for 10 minutes. You don't want to boil it because that will destroy a lot of the flavors of honey. Then rack it to secondary followed by your beer so it mixes in. This is what I did for a cream ale that I randomly decided to secondary with honey and make it a honey cream ale. Honey mouthfeel, smell and flavor are all there. Worked out great for me. Good luck!

 

[Math0]

You can also think of bottling with honey instead of other sugars

 

[lucasxp]

I'd wait until primary is finished. Once it is.. I would bring enough water to dissolve the honey you want to add to about 160* and keep it around there for 10 minutes. You don't want to boil it because that will destroy a lot of the flavors of honey. Then rack it to secondary followed by your beer so it mixes in. This is what I did for a cream ale that I randomly decided to secondary with honey and make it a honey cream ale. Honey mouthfeel, smell and flavor are all there. Worked out great for me. Good luck!

Cool! I will try that on my next batch! That's what I was looking for on my last wheat beer batch but I guess I destroyed a lot of the honey flavor when I boiled it.

 

[STL_Lucas]

Not trying to hijack this thread but I also just bottled a brown ale a couple weeks ago and I'm very interested in this honey bottling technique. So would just just add a little bit of honey to each bottle and then fill or would it be better to mix a batch of honey in the bottling bucket instead of the priming sugar. How would you go about calculating how much honey to add?

 

[twistr25]

Not trying to hijack this thread but I also just bottled a brown ale a couple weeks ago and I'm very interested in this honey bottling technique. So would just just add a little bit of honey to each bottle and then fill or would it be better to mix a batch of honey in the bottling bucket instead of the priming sugar. How would you go about calculating how much honey to add?

This site splits out a bunch of different priming sugars, just use it to see how much you need. I'd recommend batch priming it. I haven't used honey before, but it will ferment 100% so I'm not sure how much flavor you will get from it, not to mention the amount you would use for bottling would not likely impose much flavor anyway.

 

[Clonefan94]

Probably too late now, but I wouldnt bother even thinking about a secondary until your primary is finished. Secondly, there is no point in racking a brown ale to a secondary fermentor/carboy. You arn't fruiting, dry-hopping, oaking. And I doubt you need to clear a brown ale... Secondary fermentors are not quite as important as kit beer instructions make it seem.

An exception is if you need to free up your primary for another beer!

Sorry to Hi-jack, but I have to ask. Has anyone ever thought of contacting the kit companies and telling them their instructions need to be fixed? Or at the very least, just ask them why they have the instructions that they do?

I understand that their goal in the end is to make money and sell product. But wouldn't it be more beneficial to the company to give the person buying the kit the instructions to make a really good beer? OK, so you sold a kit and some basic equipment to person "X" But, the beer was **** because you told them it only took a week to ferment and you didn't mention anything about fermentation temperatures.

I would think most beer kit buyers aren't coming here for advice. They are just making the kit, trying to brew it, bottle it and then drink it in 3 weeks. Then when it tastes like pond scum, they've been turned off to homebrewing. Wouldn't it be better business to sell 10 kits to 20 people rather than 1 kit to 20 people?

I would have been duped on my first brew had it not been for this site (A brewers Best Amber Ale) I would have assumed that yeah, I should be drinking this in about 2 or 3 weeks and that an ambient room temp of 70 is perfectly fine for fermenting beer. Luckily I didn't receive the kit as a gift. I planned on starting homebrewing and gathered information from a bunch of sources and also found this place for advice.

Sorry, this hi-jack turned more into a rant than even a question, but it surprises me that no one has contacted them about this issue and even more so that the companies are still selling kits with such lackluster directions. What's the old proverb? Teach a person to make bad beer and they'll make one batch of beer, teach people to make good beer and they'll be able to make and drink good beer for life, right?

 

[lucasxp]

Not trying to hijack this thread but I also just bottled a brown ale a couple weeks ago and I'm very interested in this honey bottling technique. So would just just add a little bit of honey to each bottle and then fill or would it be better to mix a batch of honey in the bottling bucket instead of the priming sugar. How would you go about calculating how much honey to add?

Hey man,

I used four tbsp of honey with a little bit of warm water to bottle my first batch of wheat beer and it worked fine. I heat up the water, then mixed the honey, cooled the mix and poured into the bottling bucket.
You won't get super honey flavors in your beer but it works fine carbonation wise.

 

[lucasxp]

Not trying to hijack this thread but I also just bottled a brown ale a couple weeks ago and I'm very interested in this honey bottling technique. So would just just add a little bit of honey to each bottle and then fill or would it be better to mix a batch of honey in the bottling bucket instead of the priming sugar. How would you go about calculating how much honey to add?

Hey man,

I used honey to carbonate my wheat beer and it worked fine.
I mixed 4 tbsp of honey with a little bit of warm water, waited for the mix to cool down and poured into the bottleing bucket. That was a 1-gallon batch. The beer didn't have a strong honey flavor at all but it carbonated very well.

Hope this helps.