Gropo

Recipes 

I'm getting ready to brew a NB Tripel kit next week. The instructions call for racking to a 2 month secondary after active fermentation before bottling. My conundrum is: I'd rather not rack at all (I'm sold on the notion that racking only oxidizes beer w/o adding much benefit) and I'm planning on picking up a kegerator while this is fermenting, so I plan to keg this batch. I'm having problems solving this. If I primary for 3 - 4 weeks w/o racking, can this beer condition to it's full glory in a corny keg?? If so, how long should it condition in the keg?? Should I prime the keg with sugar, or just force carbonate? Would I be better off bottling this batch, and let it bottle condition for 2 or 3 months? Or, if I DO keg, do I NEED to secondary ferment it before kegging?
Sincerly,
Confused

dummkauf

Recipes 

I'd rack it and age it. If it's a Tripel, it's probably got a lot of alcohol and those tend to get better with age. My guess would be that the secondary is just to get beer off the yeast cake to clear and age until the alcohol taste mellows a bit.

I don't keg, but I would imagine you could certainly age in a keg, however note that you will wind up with way more trub on the bottom of your keg and your beer probably won't be as clear as if you had secondaried for a couple months.

Unless you plan on dumping the primary into secondary with the use of a funnel you shouldn't need to worry about oxidation. Siphon into secondary with enough hose to reach the bottom of the secondary container. I've racked to secondary on almost all of my beers and have yet to ruin a batch because of it.

If it were me, I'd rack to secondary and leave it, then rack off the trub into the keg. The beer will be aged by the time it hits the keg, plus you will have a clearer beer since most of the trub will be left behind in the secondary. It's also way easier to let a beer age if it's not carbed up and ready to drink

Mermaid

Recipes 

To secondary, or not to secondary, is an eternal question... there's maybe a dozen or so threads on the subject and everyone has their own opinions.

Here's what I have learned.

There are some brewers who prefer to leave their beer, even big beers, on the yeast for up to a month or longer and then ... (keg or bottle).

There are others who say that you'll get better clarity if you rack off to a secondary after x (where x = a week or several weeks), then bottle or keg.

I recently struggled with more or less the same question regarding my dubbel. It got down to 1.01 within a week, but hadn't cleared (and there's something that didn't sit right with me about moving a beer off the yeast after only a week)

After 3 weeks on the yeast, I racked it (gently, without disturbing the trub at the bottom) to a secondary and set it someplace where I could control the temps from getting above 70.

It's WAY clearer now, about 5 weeks post brew day.

I'm probably going to bottle condition it with a small amount of additional yeast, and then set it into it's resting spot for the next several months (bottle conditioning temps will probably stay in the low to mid 70s).

This is a GREAT thread on the subject:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/secondary-not-john-palmer-jamil-zainasheff-weigh-176837/

Helped me understand that it's really not a black and white answer, and as always "your milage may vary". I think I'm going to end up with a clearer beer because of using a secondary, but I'll probably have to bottle condition with some additional yeast because it (it's a tradeoff, especially with a big beer like a dubbel or tripel).

Gropo

Recipes 

I know that this is brought up a lot, and generally I try to avoid racking, but in this case with this beer it seems warranted.

I've never added yeast before bottling. How much yeast are you talking about? And do you ad it with the priming solution to the bottling vessel immediately before bottling?
Thanks

Mermaid

Recipes 

What I was told, was to add it to your bottling bucket along with the priming sugar mixture. One suggestion I was given was tossing in a pack of US 05 i.e. something that ferments very clean. The reason for using additional yeast in bottling was that when you rack off to a secondary you're lowering the yeast cell count available for carbonation. If it's a big beer, it's going to take a while to condition anyway (my beer had a fair amount of alcohol nose to it after a week - the yeast went like gangbusters).

Another reason I used a secondary for this batch was that I wasn't sure I was going to maintain constant temps in the 65-72 range and it was easier to keep a carboy in a "swamp cooler' than a box full of bottles. Wanted to save the warmer temps for the bottle conditioning phase.

I'm still doing my own research on this and have not made up my mind (since my beast is a bit of an experiment) as to whether or not I'm going to use the US 05, wake up some of my washed Wyeast 3864 (in the fridge), or more WL500.

I'm going to have to postpone my bottling another week anyway as I'm not going to be able to get to the homebrew supply this weekend for the oxygen barrier caps (car troubles).

More time to research

Edit: Went back and read the response to my question on the subject of yeast at bottling... the response was a pinch of dry yeast is a good idea and suggested S 05