Secondary Fermenter

Iam brewing a SF style Pale Ale. The directions recommend transferring the beer to a secondary fermenter. Is this really necessary? Can I just let it sit in the carboy an extra day or two and then bottle? Thanks

Secondaries are not necessary. Lots of brewers here do primary only.

I personally use secondaries - I find that I get less trub in my bottling bucket - but it's a personal call.

That being said - ignore kit directions. They'll have you rush beer into bottles, where an extra week or two of fermenting would lead to better tasting beer.

This is the most discussed topic on here, it has been readily covered. I suggest you read THIS thread, it's become the "uber discussion" on this topic thread. Every discussion, question, answer, citation, etch is in that thread....

To Secondary or Not? John Palmer and Jamil Zainasheff Weigh In .

Many of us leave our beer in primary for a month minimum then bottle.....We find out beers to be clearer and better tasting.

I suggest you read that thread, and experiment for yourself, and make up your own mind.

There's thousands of threads on here already, where folks have ventured their opinions, and argued incessantly, but it ultimately comes down to what works for you......

There are almost as many opinions on this as there are home brewers
Myself if it will sit 2 months or less i dont use a secondary

Hello, AGING your beer IS going to make it BETTER, that being said lol, use primary longer or use A primary/secondary combo to age your beer. Both homebrew dad and Revvy know what their talking about, any advice from them is good advice.

I am using a combo of what I have read on this forum, Im using primary for 2 weeks (instead of following kit instructions of 1 week) then transferring to a secondary for a minimum of 2 weeks or (longer) until my beer reaches the Final Gravity it should, or within reason.

I figure most likely you can't go wrong if you use a bit of both methods.

The longer the yeasties have to clean up your beer, the better it will be, and if you are bottling, don't forget! letting it have plenty of time to carb up and bottle age properly (3 weeks minimum) is what I was told, I just was asking about this, and thought you might be interested.

Congrats on Brewing your own beer!

Cheers
WiliECoyote

Sorry janivar123 was typing when you posted, yes I type like a snail runs, didn't mean to leave you out of my post

WileECoyote said:

Hello, AGING your beer IS going to make it BETTER, that being said lol, use primary longer or use A primary/secondary combo to age your beer. Both homebrew dad and Revvy know what their talking about, any advice from them is good advice.

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Psh, thanks for the kind words, but I'm still a newbie. Revvy knows what he is talking about. Jlem, Yooper, Malticulous... these are the sorts of people that know what they are talking about.

I'm a quick study, and I'm passionate, but I'm still learning!

I say, it's a hobby. If you want to find out what a secondary will do for your beer, do it.

I bought a Better Bottle because I wanted one and wanted to see the differences between using a secondary and not using one. I dry hopped my first IPA in the secondary. I'm dry hopping my Two Hearted clone in the primary right now.

I'm starting to lean towards using the BB for longer term aging before bottling, to free up a primary for another brew.

You can learn alot of things through books and the guys here. But, the best way is through experience, IMHO. You may screw up a batch or two. But, that'll probably happen anyway. Experiment. Have fun. RDWHAHB.

Just my $.02.

homebrewdad said:

Psh, thanks for the kind words, but I'm still a newbie. Revvy knows what he is talking about. Jlem, Yooper, Malticulous... these are the sorts of people that know what they are talking about.

I'm a quick study, and I'm passionate, but I'm still learning!

Click to expand...

Im right there with you homebrewdad, you have given me good advice, Im guessing that 20 years from now, we will still be learning about brewing. lol

Hey, speaking of being a newbie, I just brewed my 2nd recipe of my own, and it was my 6th batch to date, I have still yet to drink any of my brews lmao, 4 batches bottled, 1 in secondary, and 1 in primary, the spare bedroom is full of ice chest (bottle conditioning) and 2 swamp cooler tubs.

Cheers
WiliECoyote

Not really necessary but if you got space and the extra fermenter , it just adds to the "cool" factor of making beer.