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Rascal

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I am a little confused(working on my first brew). I have read as much I could and watched an instructional video. I thought I had everything mapped out. I brewed my first batch 7 days ago and my plan was to transfer into the secondary fermentor tonight, but after reading some of the forum there appears to be several schools of thought as to whether or not just leave it in the primary fermentor for another week or so. By the way my first brew is the Autumn Amber Ale kit. Are there any thoughts on this? Thanks. By the way this is a great board from what I've read and I will probably update to a premium membership soon if I get hooked on this brewing stuff.
 
There's no right or wrong answer to your question. Its mostly about preferences, what works for your process and setup.

For me, there are a couple of reasons to use a secondary or bright tank: 1) need to free up a primary for another batch; 2) long term aging; 3) dry hopping; 4) want to add gelatin or other finings. Otherwise, I leave it in the primary.

Oh, and welcome to HBT and congrats on your first batch!
 
Ditto posts above. Transferring after a week was old school when yeast health was questionable. Today we have good, healthy yeast that makes your beer better with time. So, what you've seen on this site re: long primary is very much accurate and good practice.
 
Welcome to brewing, and to HBT!

I have never agreed with the fermentation time listed on most of the instructions for kits out there. Often times 7 days not nearly enough for the beer to be in a primary. Patience is always your greatest ally, and often the greatest enemy for new brewers (it was for me!).

My advice is to wait for fermentation to complete. If you're in a hurry, check your gravity reading after 7+ days, and when it finally stays the same for about 3 days, THEN you can consider moving it to a secondary if you really want/need to.

Personally, the shortest amount of time I leave a beer in the primary is 2 week, but 4-6 weeks is my standard. You don't need a secondary unless you want to clear the beer more, or add additional ingredients.

The best advice you'll see around here is to be patient. It's a killer, but you'll be happy you did.

Good luck, and welcome to a great hobby!
 
What do you want us to do? You say you've read the discussions on here, so you know what folks do. There's hundreds of thousands of discussions on it. You have to make up your own mind. The info is here, so now you need to decide whether you want to accept it or not. We cant tell you what to do....Do you want us to re-invent the wheel and tell you again our thoughts?Some of us have invested hours in writing up our thoughts on that already and researching it. What point is there to that again?

:confused:

I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just confused about what you want from us.
 
The chance of you "hurting" the beer by letting it sit in the primary a little longer is basically zero.

Like you mentioned, there are two schools of thought and it seems pretty evenly divided between the "need to secondary" and "don't need to secondary" parties.

Personally... I do both... sometimes I'll simply keg a beer right out of the primary after three-four weeks. Other times, I'll primary for two weeks and then secondary for two weeks.

Either way... especially on your first few batches, I would not worry about it at all.
 
Most of my beer stay in primary for at least a month unless I'm adding something to them during secondary as mentioned above. I just bottled an oatmeal stout last night that sat in primary for 6 weeks. Also, is that the Autumn Amber Ale from Austinhomebrew? I brewed one of those when i first started out and it turned out to be a pretty good beer let me know how yours comes out.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I think I'll just leave it in the primary. One other quick question? I haven't taken any kind of readings on it. Do I need to do any of that or just wait a couple of weeks and move it to the bottling bucket?Thanks
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I think I'll just leave it in the primary. One other quick question? I haven't taken any kind of readings on it. Do I need to do any of that or just wait a couple of weeks and move it to the bottling bucket?Thanks

Just do it on bottling day before you start the bottling process.
 
Personally, the shortest amount of time I leave a beer in the primary is 2 week, but 4-6 weeks is my standard. You don't need a secondary unless you want to clear the beer more, or add additional ingredients.

I've been reading several of the long primary vs. secondary threads and had decided on skipping the secondary with my next batch until reading this quote. Does the secondary really help increase clarity? Or is that also debatable?

Also, I am brewing an ESB tomorrow. Is that even a brew where I should worry much about clarity?
 
I've been reading several of the long primary vs. secondary threads and had decided on skipping the secondary with my next batch until reading this quote. Does the secondary really help increase clarity? Or is that also debatable?

Also, I am brewing an ESB tomorrow. Is that even a brew where I should worry much about clarity?

I've never found the need to "clear more" after a month in primary my beer is crystal clear. I think folks who long primary and then rack to secondary are kinda missing the purpose of long primaries, AND delaying the process til beer drinking longer.
 
I've been reading several of the long primary vs. secondary threads and had decided on skipping the secondary with my next batch until reading this quote. Does the secondary really help increase clarity? Or is that also debatable?

Also, I am brewing an ESB tomorrow. Is that even a brew where I should worry much about clarity?

I suppose I should put that in perspective from personal experience. Leaving a beer sit longer will inevitably allow excess mass to fall to the bottom. When moving my primaries in order to bottle or keg, it tends to kick up sediment, along with anything a racking cane is resting on when transferring. So a secondary helps minimize the amount of sediment can be re-dispersed into the beer when you have to disturb the vessel. I hope that makes more sense. :)

Edit: And I guess I can see how that statement was confusing. It was really two statements. I was NOT suggesting letting a beer sit in primary for 4-6 weeks and THEN racking to secondary. Yes, that would be about pointless unless you finally wanted to do something to the beer again.
 
I suppose I should put that in perspective from personal experience. Leaving a beer sit longer will inevitably allow excess mass to fall to the bottom. When moving my primaries in order to bottle or keg, it tends to kick up sediment, along with anything a racking cane is resting on when transferring. So a secondary helps minimize the amount of sediment can be re-dispersed into the beer when you have to disturb the vessel. I hope that makes more sense. :)

Makes perfect sense, actually. This might be something I do because I am going to be storing my beer in an upstairs closet and then bringing it downstairs to bottle in the kitchen.

Hmmm... just when I had my mind made up, this board gives me something else to consider. That's a good thing, though. :mug:
 
Makes perfect sense, actually. This might be something I do because I am going to be storing my beer in an upstairs closet and then bringing it downstairs to bottle in the kitchen.

Hmmm... just when I had my mind made up, this board gives me something else to consider. That's a good thing, though. :mug:

You'll want to consider bringing it down the night or day before - carrying a full carboy is almost certain to kick up sediment, whether or not you use a secondary.
 
You'll want to consider bringing it down the night or day before - carrying a full carboy is almost certain to kick up sediment, whether or not you use a secondary.

And then you put it in a bottle and let it carbonate and settle out for a couple weeks or even months and all the sediment you kicked up when you moved it is stuck to the bottom of the bottle. Your beer will still be clear.
 
Also, I am brewing an ESB tomorrow. Is that even a brew where I should worry much about clarity?

ESB yeast is SUPER flocculant. If you did everything right up until bottling, then you have nothing to worry about. The worst you could possibly have is a little chill haze, but that should be a non-issue if you use some irish moss/whilfloc and get a halfway decent cold break. Since gelatin mainly removes yeast, and this yeast is going to be flocced out anyway, it's not necessary.

So no, you don't have to worry about clarity on the ESB.
 
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