Oak & no secondary question

[monkling]

In an effort to graduate from using the Mr. Beer kit and brew beers with more complexity, I’ve ordered the 5 gallon Bourbon Barrel Porter Extract Kit. I’ve been reading the directions and am a bit confused.

I don’t have a 5 gal. carboy to use as a secondary but, from what I’ve read, that’s not entirely necessary. I’m not exactly clear on when I’d add the oak chips. I think about 4 weeks in. Does that sound right?

The kit comes with 5 oz. of priming sugar but if I’m not using a secondary, I don’t see how there’s any way to add that directly to the beer before bottling it. I’m guessing the only way to go with that would be putting it directly I to the bottles.

And a side question: assuming at some point, I get a 5 gallon carboy, how does one fit oak cubes into the carboy (and then get them out)?

[jasperjuice]

Re priming sugar, reread Steps 21, 22 on the instruction sheet.
Re oak cubes, the mouth of the carboy is wide enough for adding and removing the cubes.

[frenchie]

Do you have a bottling bucket and an auto-siphon? If not, they would be very helpful.

You can leave the beer in the primary fermentor after initial fermentation is done(hydrometer is helpful here, but 2-3 weeks is usually good) and then add bourbon and oak chips. How long you leave the oak chips is up to you(I left mine for 2 weeks and got LOTS of oak in the beer). Following that, you should siphon the beer off of the yeast cake to a bottling bucket and then add priming sugar. This way you can thoroughly mix (no splashing) the priming sugar into the beer without stirring up a bunch of sediment. Then you can just rinse the oak chips and sediment out of the fermentor and you’re good to go.

Best of luck, this kit makes a really good beer.

Ron

[monkling]

That’s the issue - I don’t have a bottling bucket. I’m thinking I’ll need to invest in one if I want to do this right.

I do have a hydrometer and an auto-siphon (I’ve made a few wines & meads).

Thanks for your help.