Belgian tripel question

my belgian tripel has been in primary for a little over a week now, I haven't decided if I want to put it in a secondary yet, any suggestions or advice on what I should do with it? How long can I leave it in the primary and still be ok?

Forget the secondary. You can leave it in primary for a long time...one month, maybe more.

Let that thing ride in the primary for four weeks and then bottle.

I hate to be the junior guy who disagrees with two senior members but I don't think you can answer that question without knowing what kind of primary you are using. Most important, does it have a fermentation lock and does the lid fit tight enough that the lock actually bubbles as the fermentation goes along? If not then racking to secondary might be a good idea.

Watching the lock contiune to bubble slowly along until , well, until it doesn't is a confidance builder for those of us having less than a hundred batches under out belts. On a more practical level if the lid is tight and the lock is working, then your beer has a strong layer of carbon dioxide on top blocking oxidation. With this layer in place, it is not necessary to reduce the surface area of the wort, which is part of what racking to secondary is about. Not sitting on top the spent yeast is the other part of what racking to secondary is about. This is not a problem, if you follow the wisdom on this site, as long as you don't let it sit too long after the yeast is done. How do you tell? In the absense of a lot of experiance with different brews, watching the fermentation lock is a lot less risky with respect to contamination than taking off the lid to do gravity checks.

If your primary is the sort of joke that came with my first beer kit, consider racking to secondary. JMHO

I hope revvy doesn't see that post...

tmurph6 said:

I hope revvy doesn't see that post...

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Actually, I think BluWtrBrew's post is somewhat interesting. I've never heard the argument of "if your fermenter leaks a lot, you shouldn't keep it in there long". Usually it's stuff about dead yeast, beer clarity, etc. etc. that isn't necessarily true and has been debunked time and time again (by revy and others).

But a primary with a crappy seal? Haven't heard that discussed much. The bad seal thing could, theoretically, lead to oxidation. My guess is that it's probably (a) not a huge deal unless it's REALLY bad, and (b), if your kit came with a primary with a crappy seal, it probably came with a bunch of other crappy stuff too, and it's not going to matter if you move to secondary. And even then, plenty of breweries used open top-fermentation throughout history... Those are just guesses, I'd be interested to hear more.

Depending on your OG I would leave it in primary for one month or more

I have never heard the argument about crappy seals either. That being said, my fermenter is a 6 gal Carboy with a blow off tube that is in a jar of sanitizer. The krausen pushed through the blowoff tube into a catch bucket so I know a bad seal is not an issue. I don't plan on testing gravity for another few weeks, is it possible that I will need to repitch before bottling??

I'm not sure if a crappy seal would hurt. The CO2 doesn't want to escape unless pressure is pushing it out, right? Unless you are screwing around with it, I would think be CO2 would just rest there.

That being said, I don't necessarily subscribe to 'longer is better' because I don't think the yeast is doing much after 2-3 weeks but falling out. So you shouldn't worry about leaving in primary for a month, but I usually go only three weeks.

spazasm said:

I have never heard the argument about crappy seals either. That being said, my fermenter is a 6 gal Carboy with a blow off tube that is in a jar of sanitizer. The krausen pushed through the blowoff tube into a catch bucket so I know a bad seal is not an issue. I don't plan on testing gravity for another few weeks, is it possible that I will need to repitch before bottling??

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Not after a month. I think re-pitching for priming becomes an issue after 2-3 months or something like that.

I have a Triple on its 9th week in primary right now. Gonna bottle on Tue. I always repitch for my Triples regardless of how long I let them sit. Good luck.

McGarnigle said:

Not after a month. I think re-pitching for priming becomes an issue after 2-3 months or something like that.

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Nope, you're still probably good unless the yeast was really stressed perhaps. I've done several 2-3 month primaries without issue.

jigidyjim said:

But a primary with a crappy seal? Haven't heard that discussed much. The bad seal thing could, theoretically, lead to oxidation. My guess is that it's probably (a) not a huge deal unless it's REALLY bad, and (b), if your kit came with a primary with a crappy seal, it probably came with a bunch of other crappy stuff too, and it's not going to matter if you move to secondary. And even then, plenty of breweries used open top-fermentation throughout history... Those are just guesses, I'd be interested to hear more.

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Well not to toss to much science into here... The principle of diffusion would operate here. In short if you have 2 liquids (or gases) that are touching and can mix (like whiskey and water) they over time they will mix even without stirring. If they cant (like oil and water) they won't. This occurs naturally, and can't be stopped. How long will very on a lot of things like the seal and the surface area, temp changes, etc. If you left the lid off your bucket, CO2 blanket or not, I'd expect O2 poisoning on the brew.

I'm not saying this argues for a 2ndary, or even that it will come into play in a given brewery for air diffusions. Liquid diffusion helps out the partial boil people (like me) even if we don't get a good mix of wort and top off water, a week in a fermentor will still mix it up and solve that problem.(aeration is another problem entirely)

Ok, it's been 6 weeks, I went to the Lhbs and got some bottles plus some advice from the owner. He recommends I put some dry yeast in a few days before bottling. I went ahead and did this friday? and want to bottle tonight. The beer has fermented out already but will I have any problems with having too much yeast in the bottles (ie bombs or no carb at all)?

Dude, I left a brown ale with ginger in the primary for something like 7 months in a totally uncontrolled temperature environment, bottled it without adding yeast, and it carbonated just fine. Tasted pretty OK to my surprise, too. Not disagreeing with your plans for the tripel, just saying that leaving beer on its yeast cake in the primary isn't a cardinal sin, and is often quite beneficial in moderation.

spazasm said:

Ok, it's been 6 weeks, I went to the Lhbs and got some bottles plus some advice from the owner. He recommends I put some dry yeast in a few days before bottling. I went ahead and did this friday? and want to bottle tonight. The beer has fermented out already but will I have any problems with having too much yeast in the bottles (ie bombs or no carb at all)?

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As long as you used another beer yeast you should be fine. Just the presence of yeast won't cause bottle bombs unless they have more food than required to carbonate