Weak Flavor

[rwashko]

The first recipe I made up myself was a brown pumpkin ale. Everything is going smoothly, except when I transferred to secondary I tasted my creation and it had a really weak flavor (understatement). Can I add some pumpkin pie spice/hops to the secondary, or even just add spice to the bottles? If so, how much for a 5 gallon batch would anybody suggest (there is seriously no residual flavor from hops or spices as is)

 

[Teaman]

I think the secondary is the place to add it. I made a mango pale ale and after much research decided to add the fresh mango to the secondary. I think you lose lots of the flavor if you put it in the primary due to the CO2 blowing it out of the airlock. Also when you put it in the secondary you have the alcohol content that will help fend off possible contamination. My mango pale ale came out fine. I used 8 mangos in a 5gal batch. Next time I will use 12-15.