secondary/bottling

I plan on brewing my first batch (primary) this wednesday. The kit I have instructs me to go right to bottles (which I have). I have a ton of grolsch bottles which I hear work nicely

My question is, instead of bottling, I read many people go to a stage called secondary? As in fermenting again in another bucket or carboy? What purpose does this serve, do you just leave it there instead of bottling, or do you bottle afterwards: effectively ferminting/activating the yeast three times?

Thanks.

For the most part, the role of the secondary is to get help clear the beer. The idea is that you spend a week or two in the primary, then get the beer off the trub/yeast cake (to avoid off-flavours from developing) and into a second vessel. Here, the yeast and sediment will settle out even more and you can rack to your bottles more easily.

A secondary can also be good for 'bulk conditioning' which some people swear by for big beers (e.g., IIPAs, big stouts, etc.). I am one of them. Essentially, you just leave your beer in the secondary in the cellar for an extra month or two or three or four. It performs the same thing as bottle conditioning, essentially, but the flavour seems to improve better in the secondary than in the bottle. At least that's the theory.

Will one of those platic water cooler jugs work instead of a glass carboy?

marosell said:

Will one of those platic water cooler jugs work instead of a glass carboy?

Click to expand...

no. Not even a plastic one. There have been many many discussions on this topic. Use the search function and it will save you a bunch of time. Congratulations on trying to save money and recycle the water bottles though. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/search.php?searchid=492405
You'll find a bunch of discussions under this link.