No Secondary Needed (90% of the time).
Leave your young beer on the yeast cake!!
GRINDER: Shuffling beer around only gives the appearance of freeing up space, while making more of a mess to clean up... (AKA why not just use the glass "secondary" carboy as a primary? -that's what I do).
Well, I have done without the secondary when I'm low on beer. It's fine.
But my secondary to primary capacity is about 4:1...I have the room. So if I don't get lazy or behind in my brewing, I'll let it sit in the secondary for 1-3 months. It works for me.
In the not too distant past, many brewers aspired to fly sparge to get the best yields from their grains; now most brewers (judging by responses on this board, anyway) prefer batch sparging and some even claim it gives better yields than fly sparging.
Not too long ago, the most sound and sage recommendation from experienced brewers to newbies was to get your beer off the trub and into a "conditioning" vessel (it's not for secondary fermentation, they'd say) as quickly as possible after fermentation stops to avoid autolysis (cannibal yeasties eating their own), and to give the beer time to clear and let sediment fall out. Now many brewers seem to skip the conditioning altogether, and go straight to the keg or bottle from a long, three to four week primary. Occasionally you even hear from some brewers that they let their beer remain in primary for absurdly long times, up to 12 weeks. A couple of years ago on this board you'd have been told to dump it if it was on the cake that long.
My change from batch sparging to fly sparging has brought me a 16% improvement in efficiency, so I think I'll stick with fly sparging. I still get my beer off the trub and yeast cake within two weeks, and then condition my beer in another vessel for several weeks before bottling. I think my beer is much improved by that process although I haven't done any comparison testing.
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I use a secondary on big beers. It does free up the primary which is really practical. I agree that racking is not the best thing for a beer.
I've tried tertiary once and didn't notice any improvement, just less trub in the carboy.
unless I'm dry hopping or adding fruit, I leave mine in primary for 3-4 weeks then to bottle....this improves clarity and imparts a cleaner taste to me than racking to secondary.
Here's what Palmer has to say...
From John Palmer's book "how to brew":
Quote:
The fermentation of malt sugars into beer is a complicated biochemical process. It is more than just the conversion of sugar to alcohol, which can be regarded as the primary activity. Total fermentation is better defined as three phases, the Adaptation or Lagtime phase, the Primary or Attenuative phase and a Secondary or Conditioning phase. The yeast do not end Phase 2 before beginning Phase 3, the processes occur in parallel, but the conditioning processes occur more slowly. As the majority of simple sugars are consumed, more and more of the yeast will transition to eating the larger, more complex sugars and early yeast by-products. This is why beer (and wine) improves with age to a degree, as long as they are on the yeast. Beer that has been filtered or pasteurized will not benefit from aging.
The conditioning process is a function of the yeast. The vigorous, primary stage is over, the majority of the wort sugars have been converted to alcohol, and a lot of the yeast are going dormant; but there is still yeast activity. During the earlier phases, many different compounds were produced by the yeast in addition to ethanol and CO2, e.g., acetaldehyde, esters, amino acids, ketones- diacetyl, pentanedione, dimethyl sulfide, etc. Once the easy food is gone, the yeast start re-processing these by-products. Diacetyl and pentanedione are two ketones that have buttery and honey-like flavors. These compounds are considered flaws when present in large amounts and can cause flavor stability problems during storage. Acetaldehyde is an aldehyde that has a pronounced green apple smell and taste. It is an intermediate compound in the production of ethanol. The yeast reduce these compounds during the later stages of fermentation.
The yeast also produce an array of fusel alcohols during primary fermentation in addition to ethanol. Fusels are higher molecular weight alcohols that often give harsh solvent-like tastes to beer. During secondary fermentation, the yeast convert these alcohols to more pleasant tasting fruity esters. Warmer temperatures encourage ester production.
Revvy's one of the cool reverends. He has a Harley and a t-shirt that says on the back "If you can read this, the bitch was Raptured.
Quote:
Originally Posted by YooperBrew
I gotta tell ya, just between us girls, that Revvy is HOT. Very tall, gorgeous grey hair and a terrific smile. He's very good looking in person, with a charismatic personality... he drives like a ****ing maniac!
unless I'm dry hopping or adding fruit, I leave mine in primary for 3-4 weeks then to bottle....this improves clarity and imparts a cleaner taste to me than racking to secondary.
Here's what Palmer has to say...
From John Palmer's book "how to brew":
Dropping to the secondary the beer is still "on the yeast", he's referring to filtered/pasteurized beer...It's all the same though, primary and secondary will be going on no matter what vessel it's in.
If you bottle I HIGHLY recommend a secondary for clearing. The time spent clearing and aging allows more yeast to fall out.
One of my mottos is: The clearer the brew that goes into the bottle the cleaner the brew comes out of it.
The way I see it, if I leave a beer in primary 3 weeks and someone else makes the same beer but puts it in the primary for 1 week and secondary for 2 weeks, there is no reason why his should be any clearer. I primary in a ported better bottle so I can rack carefully. So I guess "time spent" is the key.
Anything negatively buoyant in the beer will fall out given time. Doesn't matter if the yeast cake is there or not. If you get into extended periods of time, then I can see using a secondary.
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