Beer Forum

Hey guys, I just started listening to the BN and I have to say it's great! I'm learning a ton going through the archives. One thing that is sticking in my craw though is Jamil's omission of the secondary fermentor. What's the deal? The shows that I have listened to only allude to to fact that he has banished his secondaries. Could someone here give me the lowdown on how and why he does this?

Thanks!

Love the avatar.
The secondary is un-needed in MOST cases... especially if you Primary in glass. The amount of time that your beer sits on the yeast and crap is less than unlikely to cause a noticable difference. My rule of thumb and I think Jamil's is 6 weeks or less and you are cool... anything over that yeah go ahead and rack off. So since it is less likely than Justin refusing to give a Rusty Trombone to JP to get goofy in that time, then why risk infection/o2/sneezing in the beer by racking, not worth it in my opine. Since this is the Lazy Man's (nee Pragmatic) approach then I'm sure Denny would agree too?!
Welcome anyway... WTF is a Craw?
BUB

Craw

So, do you just wait a bit longer in primary and then just bottle/keg?

Jamil uses a conical and can take the beer off the yeast w/o racking it. I still like the idea of a secondary for homebrewers as you will rouse less yeast when kegging/bottling from a secondary than from a primary.

Kai

Kaiser wrote:Jamil uses a conical and can take the beer off the yeast w/o racking it.

I know he has the ability to do that, but I'm lead to believe that he doesn't.

He actually said in on of his latest jamil shows that he doesn't use his conicals anymore or at least very often and that he still doesn't secondary.

Welcome Cheyco.

I stopped racking to secondary after my second batch - PITA. Jamil said not to do it and well you know – I listened to the Pope. I do not feel I get any more sediment sucked up from primary vs. secondary and I do not play around in my beer while the yeast is busy working and cleaning up after them selves. I have found the amount of sediment I rack either to secondary or bottling was/is directly related to my current beer consumption level while performing the racking. If I am clumsy during racking then I will get more sediment. Keep the cane still when racking to prevent the end from wiggling around near the sediment layers. Correct me if I am wrong but I think Jamil said if you are doing mead or a barley wine then should rack off before the onset of off flavors from autolysis.

TC

TWC3 wrote:Correct me if I am wrong but I think Jamil said if you are doing mead or a barley wine then should rack off before the onset of off flavors from autolysis.

TC

I think Jamil lets the mead stay in contact with the yeast long enough to get some of the "nutty" character from the yeast but not so long to get the goaty fatty acids that come along with too much autolysis.

From my experience, you're okay in the primary for most frementations. Ales are done a couple weeks and lager maybe a few weeks, but colder so there is less autolysis. I did forget to rack a lager (thinking that I already had done so) for 6 months. That was disgusting.

Somebody in here has a craw? I thought Chickenboy was the BNer with a craw.

craw - the crop of a bird or insect