secondary fermentation

[dragonbiker]

I've heard some talk that transferring to the secondary is becoming unecessary or obsolete with most styles of beer. Whats your opinion? If I could still get good beer and eliminate an extra step it would be a welcome change.

[linuxelf]

There's a real tradeoff here. Transferring to secondary increases the work involved, and also increases the chance of infection. That being said, I still do prefer to do a secondary ferment. I like to leave my beers sitting in secondary for two or three weeks, and just feel better about them sitting in a clean carboy rather than resting on the old yeast bed.

I also only have one 6.5 gal carboy and two 5 gal carboys, so the only way I can get another batch going is to get my first batch out of the 6.5 gal.

[Homegrown Hops]

I personally gave the I° only method a try recently, my active fermentation usually is done by day 3 and normaly transferred on day 7 to II°. What I did was leave the batch in the I° for 10 days then racked to kegs crashed and carbonated. I did take a FG reading to be sure that the ferment was done and @ 1.008 I was confident that was the case. I expected the brew to be a little cloudy still when I transferred but it wasnt. I may continue to use this method unless I want to reuse the yeast cake immediately or I want to harvest the yeast before dry hopping.

Cheers,
HH

[Brewcaster J]

I too have changed to a no secondary process. Since Saint Jamil has informed me that sitting on the yeast and trub bed will cause no harm for up to about a month, I usually leave it right there until kegging. I find that if I move my carboy the day before I rack to keg, to the place I'm going to do the transfer, so that all settles again, I get a nice clean transfer. as for cloudiness/shill haze...if my beer lasts long enough in the keg before I drink (which you know it usually doesn't), just sitting cold leaves it crystal clear.

Don't think I'll ever secondary again with my ales.

Justin

[2DogAle]

Question to you all:

What about if you are dry hopping your beer, do you just pop the top and through it in or do you throw it to a secondary and then dry hop?

Thanks,

Rob

[codewritinfool]

I too have changed to a no secondary process. Since Saint Jamil has informed me that sitting on the yeast and trub bed will cause no harm for up to about a month, I usually leave it right there until kegging. I find that if I move my carboy the day before I rack to keg, to the place I'm going to do the transfer, so that all settles again, I get a nice clean transfer. as for cloudiness/shill haze...if my beer lasts long enough in the keg before I drink (which you know it usually doesn't), just sitting cold leaves it crystal clear.

Don't think I'll ever secondary again with my ales.

Justin

Coming from the secondary camp (but now seeing the no-secondary light of St. Jamil), I didn't realize that there was a one-month time limit on this method. I thought Jamil said on a show that leaving it on the primary didn't hurt one bit, period.

Is it truly one month before the yeast bed causes a problem? What kind of problem could it cause? Breakdown products from the yeast decaying?

Help, Jamil!

code

[Brewcaster J]

As for dry hopping...I would throw it right it the primary after about 2 weeks. Kegging it works as a secondary to get it off the trub and begin clarifying it, while at the same time conditioning and carbonating it.

The one month deal (either Jon or Jamil or both told me..don't remember exactly which) is that autolysis can be a factor after about a month. I did leave one for 6 weeks once and did not experience any trouble. But to be safe, I was told one month is a general rule.

[2DogAle]

As for dry hopping...I would throw it right it the primary after about 2 weeks. Kegging it works as a secondary to get it off the trub and begin clarifying it, while at the same time conditioning and carbonating it.

When I win my Kegging outfit in February I'll give that a try...

Would that be 2 weeks even if the primary fermentation is done in a week?

Rob