Would adding a small dash of whisky when bottling kill secondary fermentation?

Question

I assume that secondary fermentation's upper limit is set by some balance between sugars remaining and alcohol content, is that fair to say?

Would giving just a dash of flavour potentially wreck the secondary fermentation process? I am planning on bottling and throwing in a sucrose pellet.

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 31 '13 at 21:06

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Most brewers yeast has a alcohol tolerance of at least 10%, so if your beer was around or under 10% then carbonation and conditioning will continue as normal.

If your beer is pushing that limit check the tolerance of the yeast you used - some yeasts have a much higher alcohol tolerance, meaning you'll still be fine.

answered Jul 31 '13 at 21:06

mdma

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Much obliged to both answers, I googled around and 10% looks to be the reasonable tolerable limit for my yeast. I might test a very small number on this run, and if it works, try again later. I will try a rough dilution calculation before bottling, and try an upper and a low limit and mark my bottles. – gaijintendo Jul 31 '13 at 22:17

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 31 '13 at 20:46

2

Nope, there's no reason it should. I make a Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter that gets 375 ml. of bourbon added at bottling. It's strong beer even before the bourbon, and there has never been a problem carbonating it. Unless adding the liquor pushed the beer over 12+% ABV, you should have no problem.

answered Jul 31 '13 at 20:46

Denny Conn

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Denny, is that 375ml per 5 gal batch? Sounds awesome. – uSlackr Aug 03 '13 at 11:38
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Yes it is. Here's the recipe...http://wiki.homebrewersassociation.org/BourbonVanillaImperialPorter – Denny Conn Aug 03 '13 at 16:11
That sounds great. We're getting ready to go all-grain using your batch sparge method and will add this to our want to brew list! – uSlackr Aug 04 '13 at 20:28

Would adding a small dash of whisky when bottling kill secondary fermentation?

2 Answers2