Secondary fermentation

[reanimate]

So I read the how to link here
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=493
and I presume that after a couple of weeks of fermentation, it's time to bottle the beer and this is where secondary fermentation comes in.
Presumably this is about upping the alcohol level and upping the "fizz".
People talk about adding sugar and yeast to the fermented wort then bottling it, my questions is, is there an alternative to sugar / honey etc? I want to stay true to the "Pure" brewing methods
Thx

Simon.

 

[phettebs]

A little Reinheitsgebot huh? :-)

You can use dried malt extract if you want to keep to the purity law.

 

[reanimate]

Thanks for that and sorry for the lack of reply until now, I've been on a customer site.
I'm surprised though that only you have posted, surely there are plenty of people out there doing secondary fermentation and want to be traditional - or is it always done with sugar?
What about if I only want to do a secondary fermentation to create a clearer, "better" beer but without increasing the alcohol level - I'm only after around 3.6% you see ...
Thanks again,

Simon.

 

[dorset brewer]

i was also going to ask this question because i 6 days im on to the 2nd phase of fermentation. was just going to use suger myself but other methods would help :)

p.s sorry i cant answer your question :wha:

 

[johnmcfarlane]

Use spraymalt, produces superior results and is used in traditional methods. Light spraymalt for lager , pilsner or bitter. Medium for ales and dark for porter,stout and black coloured ales. Look at carbonation calculators online to see how much to use for bottles . If barreling an ale you need about 6 ounces. Bottling lager requires 200 grammes and ales around 100-125 grammes. Hope this helps

 

[keith1664]

I believe if you're going for "pure" then you hold back some of the wort and use that for priming. As for whether you'd notice the difference?????

 

[Aleman]

I'm surprised though that only you have posted, surely there are plenty of people out there doing secondary fermentation and want to be traditional - or is it always done with sugar?

Actually a lot of us stop the fermentation early (with 1-2 points of gravity still to go) and allow the remaining sugar to carbonate the beer when bottling or casking.

German breweries carbonate using Speise which is simply fermenting wort from a subsequent batch that is added to the finished beer to allow carbonation.

There is no issue with using malt extract for priming, but you do need to use a carbonation calculator to allow you to work out the amounts as there are several variables involved in doing so (The same variables apply using sugar as well)

 

[Merry]

I have only ever used sugar to prime (glucose powder). I did consider using spray malt and mentioned it to my LHBS who suggested that for the amount of sugar needed to prime, using spray malt instead of sugar would make no discernible difference.

I have only brewed the two can kits so far, hence have never had any experience with spray malt. My LHBS reckoned that whilst dissolving 80g of sugar in a bit of water is easy, dissolving an equivalent amount of spray malt in a bit of water would be an embuggerance and probably not worth the effort involved.

I've no reason to doubt this advice, but I'm sure someone will be able to confirm whether this is correct or not.

 

[richc]

I have only ever used sugar to prime (glucose powder). I did consider using spray malt and mentioned it to my LHBS who suggested that for the amount of sugar needed to prime, using spray malt instead of sugar would make no discernible difference.

I have only brewed the two can kits so far, hence have never had any experience with spray malt. My LHBS reckoned that whilst dissolving 80g of sugar in a bit of water is easy, dissolving an equivalent amount of spray malt in a bit of water would be an embuggerance and probably not worth the effort involved.

I've no reason to doubt this advice, but I'm sure someone will be able to confirm whether this is correct or not.

Priming with spraymalt isn't hard to do, you just dissolve it in hot water. I used spraymalt for a while, then decided it was making no real difference and switched back to glucose powder.

 

[Aleman]

My LHBS reckoned that whilst dissolving 80g of sugar in a bit of water is easy, dissolving an equivalent amount of spray malt in a bit of water would be an embuggerance and probably not worth the effort involved.

I'm happy to confirm that . The trick is not to dissolve it in hot water, but to mix it in cold water and then bring that to the boil. . . . but then you are left with 400+g of spray malt that must be kept completely dry or it sets like a brick. A complete total embuggerance.

Does spray malt make a significant difference, compared to priming with sugar? You will find hundreds of people on the net who insist it does and it produces finer longer lasting bubbles than glucose/sucrose, which is really their own subjective opinion, there is no scientific evidence to back it up.

The German brewers that I have spoken to view the 1516 Reinheitsgebot law as a total complete and utter hindrance and a real PITA to have to deal with. They have had to come up with hundreds of technological sidesteps around the rules, all of which actually don't necessarily improve the quality of the beer they are brewing, where using an additional product would improve the beer more quickly and cheaply.

While brewing cheaply is the province of the beer factories, one thing I have never been able to understand is how is using 'sugar' less pure than using maltose (which is two glucose units) If Sugar is a glucose unit and a fructose unit (and the first step in the glycolytic pathway is the conversion of glucose to fructose 1,6 (IIRC) phosphate) so all the glucose from maltose gets converted to fructose anyway. Yeah you can't make a good beer using 70% sugar but 60-100g in 25L is as never going to be detectable

 

[dorset brewer]

Actually a lot of us stop the fermentation early (with 1-2 points of gravity still to go) and allow the remaining sugar to carbonate the beer when bottling or casking.

hi just making sure i understand this in simple terms lol. You stop the fermentation by putting it into a barrel with sugar/spray malt and because the fermentation stage isnt finished it helps condition ?

p.s whats priming :P ?

 

[Aleman]

Actually a lot of us stop the fermentation early (with 1-2 points of gravity still to go) and allow the remaining sugar to carbonate the beer when bottling or casking.

hi just making sure i understand this in simple terms lol. You stop the fermentation by putting it into a barrel with sugar/spray malt and because the fermentation stage isnt finished it helps condition ?

p.s whats priming :P ?

No, by stopping fermentation early, through crash chilling, there is still fermentable sugars in the beer so that when you transfer to cask/ bottle,and it warms up, the yeast wake up and produces the condition required in the beer. . . . no need for sugar syrup in the barrel

Priming is adding additional fermentable sugars to a 'flat' beer before bottling casking or kegging.

 

[Runwell-Steve]

Priming is the adding of (sugar / DME / any form of fermentable) at the point you keg / bottle your beer, to allow a small bit of fermentation to take place to produce the CO2 required to carbonate your beer.

When people say they stop the fermentation early, so they don't need to prime they mean they don't add any extra sugar / DME, as at the point they Keg / bottle their is still sufficient fermentables left in the beer to allow carbonation to occur.

When starting out it is easier to allow the beer to completely ferment prior to kegging / bottling. This normally takes anything between 3 days and a fortnight, personally I always leave mine in the fermenter for a fortnight prior to kegging.

You then Prime (add sugar / DME) to the beer and transfer it to your keg / bottles.

 

[dorset brewer]

thanks for the quick reply's guys, was talking a gravity reading and was around 1.010 thats to early to keg right ? also now i have to think what im going to try, let it ferment natually or crash chill. p.s which temp do you need to bring it down to to be classed as a crash chill ?

 

[luckyeddie]

thanks for the quick reply's guys, was talking a gravity reading and was around 1.010 thats to early to keg right ? also now i have to think what im going to try, let it ferment natually or crash chill. p.s which temp do you need to bring it down to to be classed as a crash chill ?

Depends what the beer is, what the yeast used and the Original Gravity was. I'm in a crash chill stage for my latest beer at the moment - this is a huge beer which started just under 1.090 OG and is now at 1.010, but I used a yeast (Chimay) that absolutely exceeded my expectations.

I'm holding it at 2 Centigrade for 3 days, but that's because I'm mirroring more or less what the monks do with theirs (Chimay Trappists). Once primed, the bottles will be allowed to warm and then remain at room temperature for as long as I can leave them.

Edit:

It's also worth pointing out that what I'm doing is not 'normal' for home-brewing. The crash-chilling will stop any residual fermentation in its tracks while the beer is cold, and most of the yeast will drop out of suspension. What I will then be doing before bottling is physically adding more yeast back into the beer

 

[reanimate]

This is all excellent, I have so much to learn, many thanks.