Is it easy to contaminate the beer while transferring to a secondary fermenter?

I am planning to transfer my beer to a secondary fermenter for dry-hopping after a week (and to avoid yeast flavour from the yeast sediment).

I am wondering if it is relatively easy to contaminate the beer somehow during the process?
I'll obvoiusly sanitize everything that comes into contact with the beer.

Elysium said:

I am planning to transfer my beer to a secondary fermenter for dry-hopping after a week (and to avoid yeast flavour from the yeast sediment).

I am wondering if it is relatively easy to contaminate the beer somehow during the process?
I'll obvoiusly sanitize everything that comes into contact with the beer.

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Contaminate, as in a bacterial contamination or whatnot, no not really. Just be sure your beer is done fermenting. At this point there isn't a whole lot that bacteria or wild yeast have to feed on. Still be sure to use good sanitation practices.

Oxidation is going to be your big enemy when going to secondary. For that reason a lot of folks (me included) advise against a secondary altogether.

The anti- secondary people think so, but I have never had that problem. I clean,then sanitize everything. I then flush secondary with a little co2 and it has always worked fine. I hope that helps.

Elysium said:

(and to avoid yeast flavour from the yeast sediment).

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In my experience, a secondary doesn't help with this. Yeast will flocculate and fall out of the beer just as fast in a primary as in a secondary. I'm not sure why people think moving the beer from one container to another identical container will somehow make yeast fall out of the beer faster. The only ways I know of to clear a beer faster is with cold crashing or finings (or filtering I guess, but that's kind of a different concept).

EDIT: If you were talking about autolysis, that's pretty much never a concern on the homebrew scale. Usually only happens to big commercial fermenters because of the intense pressures on the yeast cone at the bottom of big conical fermenters.

Never ever have I had a problem doing secondary, just sanitise your racking cane, siphon tubing or whatever your using, and go for it...........

If you follow proper sanitation, it's actually fairly difficult to contaminate, and oxygenation isn't much of an issue. Unless you're planning on aging for a long period of time with a lot of headspace, then both of these can become an issue, but for dry hopping, you're fine. As Peter said, you can leave the beer on the yeast for a pretty long time, and it won't have any noticeable effect. You do want to make sure fermentation has been completed for at least a day or two, since the yeast will clean up some of the byproducts they produced during fermentation. So, even though fermentation is complete, the yeast continue working for a little while.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention in my "rant" that as long as you sanitize and are mindful of oxidation then transferring will not usually cause any problems. There's just no real benefit in my opinion.

Yeah - it is relatively easy to contaminate your beer....... but it is also relatively easy to avoid doing so with good sanitation processes.

The bigger issue would be oxygen (as mentioned) and making sure you are not racking off the yeast too soon... as opposed to worrying about leaving it on the yeast too long - unless it is sitting in that primary for "months" you are not getting into the realm of picking up bad flavors from the yeast. In fact, you are more likely to get better flavor because the yeast has more time to do its work.

The only compelling (although arguable) benefit to transferring to secondary for a "normal" beer seems to be it potentially allows more trub, yeast and hop particles to drop out before bottling/kegging..... and, even that can be a bit debatable.

Your 100x more likely to contaminate the starter.
20x more likely to contaminate the primary ferment.

How's that? I am just guessing btw.

firerat said:

Contaminate, as in a bacterial contamination or whatnot, no not really. Just be sure your beer is done fermenting. At this point there isn't a whole lot that bacteria or wild yeast have to feed on. Still be sure to use good sanitation practices.

Oxidation is going to be your big enemy when going to secondary. For that reason a lot of folks (me included) advise against a secondary altogether.

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I agree, oxydation is probably your bigges worry, along with oxygen in the headspace that could allow mold to grow. Usually, before I transfer to a carboy, after it's cleaned and sanitized, I usually put my cleaned and sanitized racking cane in the carboy and push CO2 through it to purge the bottle of oxygen. Then I go ahead and rack the beer into it. Probably not 100% perfect, but it at least gives me the sense of security that my beer isn't touching oxygen. I keg though, and have an extra tap on my distributor that I use for this purpose.

I agree with most though who don't believe it's necessary to ever go to secondary. I just do because I like fermenting in buckets and I prefer to free those up when I have an IPA that needs dry hopping. Especially if i don't have an open keg yet.

peterj said:

In my experience, a secondary doesn't help with this. Yeast will flocculate and fall out of the beer just as fast in a primary as in a secondary. I'm not sure why people think moving the beer from one container to another identical container will somehow make yeast fall out of the beer faster. The only ways I know of to clear a beer faster is with cold crashing or finings (or filtering I guess, but that's kind of a different concept).

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I am not talking about getting the yeast fall out faster....I am talking about getting rid of the yeast sediment that it sits on....thus reducing the chance to get a yeast aftertaste in my beer.

barmyarmy said:

The anti- secondary people think so, but I have never had that problem. I clean,then sanitize everything. I then flush secondary with a little co2 and it has always worked fine. I hope that helps.

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+1
there is a very small risk at all stages, I think the oxidation risk is overblown too, i think auto-siphons with leaky seals are the problem not the actual transfer to a secondary.

Its super easy to contaminate. Just drop some cat poop in and your all set. In truth, any kind of poop will work.

Elysium said:

I am not talking about getting the yeast fall out faster....I am talking about getting rid of the yeast sediment that it sits on....thus reducing the chance to get a yeast aftertaste in my beer.

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If a beer tastes too yeasty, it's because there is too much yeast in suspension not because it was touching a flocculated yeast cake. The only way to reduce yeast flavor is for the yeast to fall out of suspension.

Anything that's going to settle out in secondary would have settled out in primary given the same amount of time. With imperfect racking technique, you may be stirring up some junk in transfer and extending the time to clear the beer.

peterj said:

If a beer tastes too yeasty, it's because there is too much yeast in suspension not because it was touching a flocculated yeast cake. The only way to reduce yeast flavor is for the yeast to fall out of suspension.

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Not necessarily true- you can definitely lend a yeasty character to perfectly brite beer by letting it sit for too long(and this is not autolysis). Ask me how I know. Some yeast strains do it more than others. 95% of properly brewed beers are better fresh; most of my ales are kegged ~7-10 days after pitching.

daksin said:

Not necessarily true- you can definitely lend a yeasty character to perfectly brite beer by letting it sit for too long(and this is not autolysis). Ask me how I know. Some yeast strains do it more than others. 95% of properly brewed beers are better fresh; most of my ales are kegged ~7-10 days after pitching.

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Interesting, I've never noticed this with my beers. How long has the beer sat on the yeast when you've noticed this happening?

peterj said:

Interesting, I've never noticed this with my beers. How long has the beer sat on the yeast when you've noticed this happening?

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I'd say about 6-8 weeks. Pretty much ruined an altbier- no amount of lagering would clean it up. Anyway, back to OP's question, if you know how to sanitize your equipment, it's pretty tough to contaminate beer just by racking it.

After one week, depending on what beer it is, its fermentation temps, and other conditions, it may not be fermented out yet. Racking at the wrong point would likely result in a stuck batch.

So I would say, just dry-hop in your primary, to coincide with the last stages of primary fermentation and early conditioning phase. Easy peasy.

From my experience no it is not easy to contaminate. ****, my first ever brew I transferred to secondary like a meth head siphoning gas. Took tubing, sucked on the end of it to get it going and bam done, no infection.

When beer is done fermenting, it has alcohol in it and the pH is fairly low (pH 4.0–4.4, in most cases). As such, you are less likely to pick up a contaminant that ruins your beer than when you rack from the kettle to your primary fermenter. If your cleaning and sanitation is sufficient to produce clean beer in your primary fermenter, you probably won't contaminate it racking to secondary.


Chris Colby
Editor
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