BeerBorg

I have a Brewdemon conical fermenter which I think is pretty cool. I live in an apartment so this works pretty good for not having a lot of room. I am using pre-hopped wort but I want to expand my skills without going the route of making wort form scratch. All the kit recipes say ferment for a week then bottle and let sit for a couple weeks and then drink. Seems like rushing things to me.

I want to buy a second fermenter so I can do a second fermentation. I am trying to
a) clear up the final product because it seems a little muddy to me
b) add a little kick to it

I have a batch approaching it's second week of fermentation. It started as Mr Beer Diablo IPA. But I added one half a pouch of D-45 Premium Amber Belgium Candi Syrup and some orange peal and boiled it for about 45 minutes instead of following the recipe. (what can I say....I don't follow instructions well) It is coming up on it's second week of fermenting. I am thinking a good idea would be to transfer it into a second BD conical fermenter for a second fermentation. But I am unclear if I should add more sugar, more yeast or not add anything and if so what kind of sugar or yeast should I add.

Any thoughts for a newbie?

Thanks.

PS....pray for our friends in Colorado. They got whacked pretty hard with the flooding. And New Belgium (home of the world famous "Fat Tire" beer) is right by the river anyway...hope they didn't suffer too much damage.

Transferring to a secondary only requires that you follow proper sanitizing procedures and take care to not aerate the beer, which can cause off-flavors. I would recommend food-grade tubing on the spigot, keeping the secondary lower than the primary, and letting gravity do its thing.

You don't need any more yeast or sugar or anything. If, as you say, your batch is nearing its second week of fermentation, there's still plenty of live, viable yeast floating around in there to finish the job.

That being said, keep in mind that you still may not have beer as clear as you'd like, with the orange peel addition you made. You might want to consider a cold crash two or three days before bottling. You may also want to extend your fermentation time and your conditioning time. The addition of the Candi Syrup may require a longer conditioning time, although half a pouch may not cause much of a problem.

For future batches, keep in mind that the best way to raise the ABV is by adding malt, not sugar. Both are fermentable, but too much sugar will thin the beer and make it cidery, rather than robust the way malt will.

If you're going to be making additions to the basic HMEs and recipe kits, I'd strongly recommend that you get a hydrometer, if you don't already have one. They're inexpensive, but extremely useful, as they take the guesswork out of determining when your beer is done fermenting.

I'll add to what FD said by saying it isn't "necessary" to transfer to a secondary with a standard brew. It can be a good idea if you are adding fruit, massive amounts of dry hopping or other additions. It used to be standard practice to transfer to a secondary to get the beer off the yeast cake (trub). Over time it has become, transfer if it makes you feel better, but it adds in another potential infection/oxidation point of failure. There really isn't that much contact with the trub in a conical of this size anyway. Personally, I'd let it go up to 3 weeks, then cold crash for a couple days if you want to help clear it up before bottling.

Cheers!

Did you boil the HME, or just the syrup and orange? My understanding is that boiling HME will reduce hop flavor. I'm new to brewing this year, and tried some experiments. Only one worked out well. Now I'm focusing on improving my procedures and understanding. Just yesterday I tasted my second batch of Centennial Blonde, in which I increased the hops slightly. My wife and I both think it improved. It's kind of like cooking: learn the recipes, try them, make small changes. Later you create your signature dishes.
Have fun, keep us posted.

John Sand wrote:Did you boil the HME, or just the syrup and orange? My understanding is that boiling HME will reduce hop flavor. I'm new to brewing this year, and tried some experiments. Only one worked out well. Now I'm focusing on improving my procedures and understanding. Just yesterday I tasted my second batch of Centennial Blonde, in which I increased the hops slightly. My wife and I both think it improved. It's kind of like cooking: learn the recipes, try them, make small changes. Later you create your signature dishes.
Have fun, keep us posted.

You do not want to boil HME. It is already hopped and bittered just right. Boiling, I would think, would increase the bitterness. I do know it does something undesirable to the hops that are already in the extract.

I am looking at that brew demon conical. And I think it can be modified to work like a real conical so that you never need to secondary. You would have to raise it up higher somehow. Then drill a hole in the very bottom of it and install a tap. Then you could just open the tap as soon as primary fermentation is done and let your trub out the bottom.

Gymrat wrote:I am looking at that brew demon conical. And I think it can be modified to work like a real conical so that you never need to secondary. You would have to raise it up higher somehow. Then drill a hole in the very bottom of it and install a tap. Then you could just open the tap as soon as primary fermentation is done and let your trub out the bottom.

Yeah, someone already has done this, I've seen the pics of it. I've got two of these things now and after I brew a few batches with them I'm n considering messing with them like that. I've got LBKs as a backup if I trash them.

It would be easy to find wooden dowels the same diameter as the plastic legs I think, so raising it up a few inches should not be difficult.

This image was posted on BrewDemon's FaceBook Page. It looks like they just added a fitting to the bottom with the hose and clamp.

Thanks!! My research indicates that a second ferment gets the trub away from the fermenting brew. The trub drain in the bottom seems to accomplish that. Awesome. So if I understand, letting the trub out the bottom then fermenting a while longer would accomplish the same thing less work and less chance of contamination. Less work good ugh.
I was at Brew Party in SA, my local bew supply house and a customer was telling me about cold crashing today. Makes sense. Problem is I have one fridge and it has food in it......I know, crazy huh. Baby steps......
BTW I skipped past the hydrometer to a spectrometer. So is the fermentation done when the specific gravity (or brix) stops changing?

What do you think about plastic bottles? I dont drink out of them anyway and they are easy.

Thanks for the advice!

LouieMacGoo wrote:This image was posted on BrewDemon's FaceBook Page. It looks like they just added a fitting to the bottom with the hose and clamp.

What is that home made rig out the top? What does it do and how does it work?

Looks like a blowoff tube. Similar to an airlock.

Welcome to the forum Petts.

I have wondered if that tube on the bottom would work? Seems to me, IMHO, that the thick trub would either not flow well through that small of a tube, or it would not flow well at all. Just my 2 cents and change.

.....although half a pouch may not cause much of a problem.

FYI, the full pouch was for a 5 gal batch and I added half that to a 2-1/2 gal batch.

Gymrat wrote:

John Sand wrote:Did you boil the HME, or just the syrup and orange? My understanding is that boiling HME will reduce hop flavor. I'm new to brewing this year, and tried some experiments. Only one worked out well. Now I'm focusing on improving my procedures and understanding. Just yesterday I tasted my second batch of Centennial Blonde, in which I increased the hops slightly. My wife and I both think it improved. It's kind of like cooking: learn the recipes, try them, make small changes. Later you create your signature dishes.
Have fun, keep us posted.

You do not want to boil HME. It is already hopped and bittered just right. Boiling, I would think, would increase the bitterness. I do know it does something undesirable to the hops that are already in the extract.

It actually boils off the essential oils of the hops in the wort and makes the hops bitterness fade.

Thanks for the info.

I have a spectrometer. Is the way to tell if the brew is done fermenting to determine when the specific gravity (or brix) stops changing?