A good candidate for racking to secondary?

Questor · 03-22-2009, 01:37 AM

I did a double infusion mash last night with my wife of a dark English ale. I guess we were a little 'enthusiastic' about squeezing every ounce of juice out of the barley, and it looked a lot like muddy water.

Even after boiling, even after adding 1.5 teaspoons moss... It still looked like muddy water.

It's OG was 1.090.

At about 13 hours it was already bubbling once per second, and it's only getting faster. Not yet even 24 hours and it's bubbling furiously.

I don't typically, but what do you think? Rack to secondary when primary is done?

newbeerpig · 03-22-2009, 02:56 AM

I prefer racking to a secondary, I like the finished product better, I get less sediment in the bottle and all around I feel I get a better beer. That doesn't mean you have to rack to a secondary but if you are concerned with clarity give it a whirl, might even try gelatin just before bottling or kegging. I have found that helps reduce the amount of junk even further.

HOP-HEAD · 03-22-2009, 01:09 PM

I'm actually going to bottle my first non-secondary beer today... an ESB. And after looking at the fermenter, I'll probably go back to secondary again until I can taste a few of these out of the bottle in a month. Not because this one's not going to be tasty, but because I can see more in my beer on this batch (tiny floaties), then I've seen in any previous batch that was secondaried for several weeks.

To me, it's not much work to transfer it, and I've got compliments on every single batch from other brewers about how clear my final beer is. Most, if not all of them, have made the comment about how they wish there's were that clear.... and yet, few of them take the time to secondary.

Though again, I've never not used one, so I have little to directly compare to.