Secondary fermentation for Obama honey porter extract kit?

[cgilson]

Hi everyone,

Some friends of mine and I have recently graduated from using beer kits and bottling to doing extract brewing with a pressure barrel for secondary fermentation.

Our first brew in this way is the White House Honey Porter (from this kit: http://www.brewuk.co.uk/store/white-hou ... -pack.html). It's currently at the tail-end of a 10-day fermentation in primary, and I was wondering if we also need to add sugar when we decant it into the pressure barrel for secondary fermentation? The instructions don't say that we need to, but after priming bottles with sugar all along, it seems a bit strange not to!

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated from some newbie brewers!

[jimp2003]

Secondary fermentation is something slightly different to conditioning/carbonating in the bottle or keg - it usualy refers to racking the beer off the yeast in the primary FV to a secondary FV for a period before packaging in bottles or a keg. Some people believe this gives a clearer beer. It can also be a useful step for adding things like fruit to a beer.

Anyway, to answer your question - you would usually add priming sugar to a keg just as you would when bottling. Alternatively it is possible to keg the beer when it reaches a couple of points above the target FG so that CO2 is produced during the very last stage of fermentation without the need for priming sugar. I have never done this but plenty on here do.

[darrellm]

I've done a few of the BrewUK kits and the instructions tend to be a bit light in places, relying on you having some knowledge to fill in the gaps....just do as you normally do, if kegging I tend to add sugar plus a tablespoon of yeast from the FV (picked this tip up from somewhere, and always get plenty of gas).

Let us know how you get on with that one, as I've been thinking of doing it. Can recommend the Old Peculier, Exmoor Gold and Way To Amarillo from BrewUK too...the OP in particular is gorgeous

[cgilson]

Thanks to both of you for the advice - I hadn't realised the difference between conditioning and secondary fermenting as well.

We're racking into the barrel on Wednesday night so I will keep you posted.

Thanks!

Chris