Secondary questions

[lunamick]

Hello all.. I'm brand new to home brewing and want to start with an ipa... Was gonna try to add some chai tea flavoring to it.. Should this be done in the secondary fermenter .. And how long should it stay in primary ?

 

[user 108580]

Were you going to make tea and add it? Or were you going to dump the herbs in the fermenter?

If youre going to add herbs, Sanitizer them and put them in the secondary. If you're making a tea, add it at bottling/kegging time.

A good idea is to make some tea and add small amounts to some of the beer to find out a good mixing ratio. You wouldn't want to ruin an entire batch by blindly dumping in a bunch of tea.

Leave it in the primary until active fermentation is done. Usually a week or so. A good signal that primary fermentation is done us when the krausen disappears from the beer.

 

[lunamick]

I was gonna use chai syrup like the stuff used in coffee shops... Or was gonna brew the tea itself .. Like I said I'm brand new to brewing so any advice would be great ...
And thanks for the info about primary fermenting...I will be bottling not kegging.. Also I got a kit for the ipa and was wondering If it would be smart to make some adjustments to the hops.. Like adding some dry hops

 

[lunamick]

Also when is a good time to bottle after secondary... How long can it be in secondary before transferring it to my bottling bucket and addin the primer sugar

 

[user 108580]

Usually you need 3 days of un changed gravity readings. That's a sign that fermentation is done and you can proceed to bottling.

And yes, you could experiment with dry hopping. The nice thing about hops is they are anti bacterial so no need to Sanitize, just throw them in. But not for too long otherwise your beer will have a grassy flavor. I would say a max of 2 weeks dry hopping. Try and find a nice floral hop like cascade for dry hopping.

Anything else you add needs to be Sanitized, don't forget that.

 

[lunamick]

Alright thank you very much.. Also by chance do you have any good recipes that I could try out ?
And is it 100 % necessary to have a mash run when doing all grain recipes?

 

[lunamick]

Sorry for all the questions ... But one more.. I only have an electric stove as was possibly planning on getting a propane burner.. Is there any specific kind I need

 

[unionrdr]

Cascade is anything but floral. It's a "C" hop,known for it's grapefruit flavor mainly. You don't absolutely need a mash tun if you have a big kettle,you can do Brew In A Bag. A propane burner that'll hold up to the weight of a turkey frier works well.

 

[adamjackson]

Sorry for all the questions ... But one more.. I only have an electric stove as was possibly planning on getting a propane burner.. Is there any specific kind I need

http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=2253413011

+

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/homebrewing-equipment/boiling-equipment/kettles.html

It's pricey but I ALWAYS keep an extra full tank at the house. Nothing sucks more than running out of gas half-way through a boil and the nearest store being 30 minutes away.

 

[user 108580]

Cascade is anything but floral. It's a "C" hop,known for it's grapefruit flavor mainly.

Hmmm, well I've never had a problem with it. But oh well. Maybe ill expand a bit. I use a lot of cascade cuz I have the plant haha

 

[lunamick]

http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=2253413011

+

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/homebrewing-equipment/boiling-equipment/kettles.html

It's pricey but I ALWAYS keep an extra full tank at the house. Nothing sucks more than running out of gas half-way through a boil and the nearest store being 30 minutes away.

Thanks those were the ones I was looking at