Secondary Fermentation - To Rack or Not to Rack

Revy seems to use we as an authority. No real tested data. Brewing Science books don't use hearsey. They use test labs and analyzers to prove the theory.

I know that a lot of keeping wort on the trub is yeast dependent. Certain yeast strains will be okay for a while, others will not and will spit out off flavors in your brew. If you have a 100 IBU brew, you may not taste them or anything else for that matter, but if you try to make a pils or lite lager with low hop ibu's they will show up.

Leaving fermented wort on the trub for long periods of time with no off flavors is an exception, not the rule

If you use certain yeasts they will eat themselves if there isn't enough food

OLDBREW said:

Leaving fermented wort on the trub for long periods of time with no off flavors is an exception, not the rule

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I tend to agree, but I think the issue is that we may define "long periods of time" differently. From my own brewing experiences, I don't feel that the 3-4 weeks I normally ferment is long enough for those off flavors to develop. There may be yeasts that produce off flavors from autolysis in less than a month, but the 8 or 10 strains I've tried so far didn't, even in very light beers.

There was an article in BYO last year that had homebrewers compare brews that had been racked against those left on the cake. It wasn't the most scientific expiriment, but the results are interesting. Definitely worth a quick read-
http://***********/component/resource/article/1960-byo-and-basic-brewing-radio-experiment-does-delayed-racking-harm-your-beer

I ferment in a sanke for 20 days (3 weeks roughly). I then transfer into a corney, stick it in the fridge to finish off the remainder of the time with some C02.

I was wondering....does my corney transfer count as a secondary?

ILOVEBEER said:

I ferment in a sanke for 20 days (3 weeks roughly). I then transfer into a corney, stick it in the fridge to finish off the remainder of the time with some C02.

I was wondering....does my corney transfer count as a secondary?

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If you dispense out of the corney (which it sounds like you do) then no. A secondary is a vessel between the primary and the keg\bottle.

Juan,
From reading that it tells me that they were not looking to see if the flavor was better doing primary fermentation compared to doing a primary/secondary fermentation. They were looking for yeast autolysis with keeping the beer on the yeast for a short amount of time.
The decade ago comment about the must having to rack the beer over right away is BS. We knew 20 years ago that you could sit the wort on a yeast cake for 3-4 weeks with no real ill effects (autolysis).

James didn't do a secondary fermentation. He finished fermenting the beer in the primary, then racked it over. All three of the tasters said there was a definite difference in flavor, with Chris Colby saying the brew that was racked off the trub was the better of the two. Crispy clean spritzy.
The other two said the beer left on the trub tasted fruitier. Hmmm.. that was only a short stent on the trub and 1056 is a pretty crisp, clean yeast for an ale yeast.

That test and guidelines used was faulty. They should have had a recipe with the same yeast hops and fermentation temperatures designed for all brewers to abide by. There should be very little hoppiness and all light malts used so you could pick up any flaws. Then also do a proper primary/secondary fermentation

As I stated, it wasn't very scientific, but I still thought it was worth reading. Even though it wasn't designed to see which method created better tasting beer, the participants did rate which tasted better, and were split as to their preferences.

As unscientific as the study was, I think it showed clearly that the flavor differences between a long primary vs using a secondary are not as large as many would have you believe. Some participants didn't notice any difference at all, and those that did all said the differences were very minor. Even RJ who left some of his bitter on the yeast for an additional 40 days said "the differences are very slight".

OLDBREW said:

All three of the tasters said there was a definite difference in flavor.

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Where did you get "definite difference in flavor"? Here's the actual quote- "All three tasters thought the differences between the three beers were extremely insignificant."

In the end I think it's personal preference, I just want to see an end to the fear-mongering about leaving a beer on the yeast cake for the entire fermentation. It's not going to ruin the beer, and in fact it probably won't change the flavor much at all.

Chris said that all three samples were “very similar” with a “clean” flavor. According to Chris, the beer bottled at two weeks had the least amount of body. The beer left on the primary yeast for four weeks had a very slight “meaty” or “broth-like” character, while the beer that had been racked to secondary was crisper, or — as he put it — the “zippiest.”

While Steve thought the beer left on the primary yeast was the most different, it was the beer that he preferred. He described it as “most fruity.”

James thought the beer bottled at two weeks had a sharper and cleaner character. While he thought the beer racked to secondary had a more fruity quality, James felt it was “cleaner” than the beer left on the primary yeast for the full time period – a beer he described as very slightly “nuttier.”

This to me is a definite different flavor profile from beer to beer and this is brews kept only a short period of time on the trub

Try keeping a triple decocted doppelbock on the trub for extended periods of time with no secondary.

They are teaching the KISS method, this way they can try to keep more homebrewers brewing and in turn sell more product.

Hi...

My first post...seems like a heated topic.

First, I would like to ask if anybody has any solid research. While Revvy and everybody else are making very emotional arguments about how great they do things, the evidence they are presenting is purely anecdotal and has no scientific basis whatsoever.

What I gather here is that you want to use the secondary as a clearing stage and are looking for clarity points.

So here is what I am going to do. I have a few potential sources for homebrewing experimentation. If nobody has any actual studies in this to provide, I will propose to them that we do this:

1) Brew a beer of their choice that is not terribly dark (as dark beers would not benefit much from a clearing stage anyway)

2) Rack half to a secondary.

3) Proceed exactly the same with both beers through the bottling stage.

4) I will take both beer samples to my lab to be analyzed with a spectrophotometer (a device that measures light absorbance in a chemical sample) The clearer beer should exhibit less absorbance. In order to keep a good randomization, I will hope that at least 10 homebrewers will actually want to go through with this experiment.

Then, we can see if it indeed does make clearer beer.

Sound like a good idea?

michael.berta said:

yeah like what others are saying. A secondary vessel isn't required nor will it produce better beer. Using a secondary will cost you cleaners, sanitizer, space for extra equipment, time and potential oxidation. Basically lots of us think it's a waste of time. Don't worry about your yeast dying on you.

Keeping your brew in one vessel will allow the yeast to clean up after it self and produce a cleaner tasting beer. Also yeast will settle regardless of what vessel it's in. it's not like yeast in suspension looks down, gets scared and decides not to floculate.

After fermentation has stopped completely and I have reached my FG I leave it alone for a week or so. Then I crash cool (putting the fermenter in a fridge) for another week or so. This will leave you will clear beer.

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Never throught of crash cooling it in the fridge before botteling/kegging. Good idea! Also, what do you do for your high gravity beers? Do you treat them the same way? Some people like to "condition" them in the secondary for 3-6 months or more depending on the gravity and type. What are your thoughts?

quantummechanic84 said:

Then, we can see if it indeed does make clearer beer.

Sound like a good idea?

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i may be missing something here but isn't there more to it that just "clear" beer? While clear beer is desireable in certain sytles isn't it the overall flavor qualities of the beer that most people are after?

MilwaukeeBrewGuy said:

i may be missing something here but isn't there more to it that just "clear" beer? While clear beer is desireable in certain sytles isn't it the overall flavor qualities of the beer that most people are after?

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Yes! Has very little to do with clearer beers, and much to do with off flavors coming from the trub when you allow the brew to sit on it too long.

There is plenty of documentation using analyzers that prove having flavor problems from allowing the beer to sit on the primary trub too long.

This thread is long,but informative. Just so I have it straight...I am in the current practice of leaving my beer in the primary 3 weeks. I then transfer into cornies to wait out the duration until consumption....does anyone here agree or disagree that I am doing the right thing (for my setup that is).

Thanks

that's pretty much what i do. I think it would have to be on the trub for many months to "maybe" even taste the effects of possible off flavors.

Granted, with some lighter beer styles the time frames may vary.

I have an Irish Red 10g batch that I split into two carboys. Because I needed a 6g fermenter a little earlier than expected, I racked one of the two Irish Reds to a secondary after 9 days (It was at intended FG). The other I intend to let sit on the yeast for 4-5 weeks.

So we'll see if there are any flavor differences in another 3 weeks.

NOTE: I normally rack to keg from the primary after 4-5 weeks (unless I dryhop or add fruit in which case I moved to secondary).

This is my first IPA (or Orange/Coriander APA). I brewed the 8th...it is in primary now (sanke) and I plan to move it over to two cornies on the 28th. At that time each corney will get 2oz of cascade droppped in to the beer in a tied sanitized bag. I plan to tap the first keg Jan 10ish or so. The other will sit in the fridge @ 40* (until this one is empty) with the 2oz of cascade in their for atleast a month or more.

Any objections...any ideas...any comments?


Thanks
Joe

OLDBREW said:

Yes! Has very little to do with clearer beers, and much to do with off flavors coming from the trub when you allow the brew to sit on it too long.

There is plenty of documentation using analyzers that prove having flavor problems from allowing the beer to sit on the primary trub too long.

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Absolutely. The question is, though, what is "too long"?

I once let a honey brown sit on the trub for 9 weeks. It was just before I got married and I had no time to touch it. It tasted the same as my next batch of the same recipe that I left on the trub for 4 weeks.

Shrug. That's the longest I have ever left anything in primary and it removed my fears of autolysis.

ILOVEBEER said:

This thread is long,but informative. Just so I have it straight...I am in the current practice of leaving my beer in the primary 3 weeks. I then transfer into cornies to wait out the duration until consumption....does anyone here agree or disagree that I am doing the right thing (for my setup that is).

Thanks

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I wish I had your set up 'cause that's exactly what I would do. And if you like the way the beer tastes and you and your friends enjoy it then there is absolutely nothing wrong with what you're doing or how you're doing it.

You could get all crazy with it and leave it in the primary for another week or two and then follow your normal procedures and see what happens... The worse thing that could happen is you'll decided to never do it again.

Sounds great... thanks for the help

ILOVEBEER said:

does my corney transfer count as a secondary?

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I would say so, yes. Agree others?

I have a few brews under my belt now, and figured on chiming in here. I brewed a Saison that took 6 weeks to hit FG, and it is so ridiculously cloudy. I don't care, it fits the style, but if the long primary helps clear, I sure didn't see it with this one... I just brewed a winter style ale, using Wyeast Witbread yeast. I sucked a good glob or 2 of trub into the bottling bucket, and this beer is ridiculously clear, and I bottled it as soon as i had 3 days of FG. No yeast tastes or anything. I think there are so many factors that go into this argument that finding a controlled experiment would be the only way. even the siphon half test could be faulty because the further down you go the more chance of swirled yeast getting into the bottling bucket.

I have a belgian dubbel that I have in primary right now that will probably go to second to batch age. Thats one thing no one is really commenting on, and thats where my question comes in.... I'm not looking to secondary my dubbel to clear it up, I'm confident in the yeast doing that for me, my question is that i planned on aging this in a secondary for another month or so before bottling, and with it being winter, and someone cold in my basement I am figuring that 5 gallons of beer is less likely to get hit with major changes in temp. So can someone maybe chime in there, without completely hijacking the thread, but I think its certainly relevant... Is a secondary acceptable for aging, as opposed to 2 months in primary on top of the trub and cake?

high gravity yeast will eat itself if you let it You are better to crash cool it then transfer over to a secondary for bulk conditioning IMHO

JuanMoore said:

+1 to everything Revvy has said so far. When I started becoming more patient and letting my beer ferment longer, the quality of the beer I was producing increased dramatically. Although smaller, I noticed another jump in quality when I quit using secondaries. It has me believing that the yeast do a better job cleaning up after themselves if left on the yeast cake. I do a 3-4 week primary for almost all of my brews now, and couldn't be happier with the results so far.

As far as clarity goes, I've seen an improvement since I stopped using a secondary, but it could just be that my techniques have improved. Or maybe leaving the beer undisturbed for the entire fermentation and conditioning period allows the yeast to settle out better? IMHO good starch conversion, a good cold break, and careful racking each have at least 10X more of an effect on clarity than using a secondary does. I will say that if you are sloppy when racking that it's less problematic when using a secondary, because there's less stuff to stir up.

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+1.
Also ive noticed that after cold crashing that the cake on the bottom is less likely to stir up during racking. Sometimes i feel like i can just drop the autosiphon in and it wont suck up any yeasties (i dont though).

jtd_1 said:

...after cold crashing that the cake on the bottom is less likely to stir up during racking.

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How do you "cold crash?" I probably need a chest freezer?

ryan

ryankf said:

How do you "cold crash?" I probably need a chest freezer?

ryan

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Cold crashing just means lowering the temperature, and for an ale I would think something in the 40's would be a good temperature to cold crash, but anything cooler than existing temperatures would help the yeast to settle and get compacted. This could mean moving it to a cold basement, or putting it in a fridge, or lowering the temp of your fermentation chamber.

Ok, sorry to revive this thread, but I thought it might be better than starting a new one.

I was planning on racking my Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale to a secondary tomorrow. I'm following the recipe in "Clone Brews". Tomorrow will be day 14, which is when it says to move to secondary and dry hop.

I'm willing to try the advice of some on this thread and leave it in the primary. But the question is, how do I change the time at which I dry hop accordingly?

I apologize if this has been covered on another thread, sometimes there are just so many that turn up in the search it makes it hard to find what you need. Would appreciate any info, I'm feeling lazy already this weekend and would love to avoid lugging that damn carboy around. Thanks

Ditto woopig's question: If dry hopping in the primary .... do you have to leave it a bit longer compared to dry hopping in secondary? The thinking being that by dry hopping in secondary the circulation provided by syphoning onto the hops may move things along a bit quicker.

Thanks
BigCask

I did 2 5 gallons batches of celebration ale last year in 2 weekends. One I dry hopped in the secondary and one in primary because I didn't have a secondary to go to. I ended up with 2 great beers with no discernible difference between the batches. I am one that falls into the "no secondary" category and am falling into the one bucket for it all category now. I am planning a rye IPA here that I am going to do a 10 gal batch of and do the same of dry hop one in primary and one in secondary again and see what I get. I don't think I will notice much difference again.

BigCask said:

Ditto woopig's question: If dry hopping in the primary .... do you have to leave it a bit longer compared to dry hopping in secondary? The thinking being that by dry hopping in secondary the circulation provided by syphoning onto the hops may move things along a bit quicker.

Thanks
BigCask

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I dry hopped an IPA with 2 oz. of leaf hops in my primary after 5 weeks. Went about 5 days, then cold crashed for several more, then cleared with a bit of gelatin.

Alot of people shake it a bit to get the hops down; I just wait a little longer and use the cold crash to start dropping the hops to the bottom so some new exposure happens. But I don't have an A/B test to tell whether it works as good as racking over the hops.

I don't think this is much of a problem if you use pellets, though. Should be able to go with the same amount of time, IMHO, due to the increased surface area.

Augie said:

I did 2 5 gallons batches of celebration ale last year in 2 weekends. One I dry hopped in the secondary and one in primary because I didn't have a secondary to go to. I ended up with 2 great beers with no discernible difference between the batches. I am one that falls into the "no secondary" category and am falling into the one bucket for it all category now. I am planning a rye IPA here that I am going to do a 10 gal batch of and do the same of dry hop one in primary and one in secondary again and see what I get. I don't think I will notice much difference again.

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I just did this exact thing about 4 weeks ago. Other 5 gallon batch is still sitting in the primary w/ no intent for a secondary. Already bottled my other secondary version. They are both celebration ale too.

OK, my SWMBO bought me two glass carboys for Christmass a 5 gallon and a 6 gallon. If racking to a secondary is only needed for dry-hopping and some 2 stage fermentation brews, what can I do with these 2 glass carboys? Can I use these as extra primaries provided I leave enough head space? Are there other uses for them?

Sorry for asking what may a basic question but there have been a lot different opinions expressed here and I want to know if I should keep these or downsize.

thanks...

Mick

msa8967 said:

OK, my SWMBO bought me two glass carboys for Christmass a 5 gallon and a 6 gallon. If racking to a secondary is only needed for dry-hopping and some 2 stage fermentation brews, what can I do with these 2 glass carboys? Can I use these as extra primaries provided I leave enough head space? Are there other uses for them?

Sorry for asking what may a basic question but there have been a lot different opinions expressed here and I want to know if I should keep these or downsize.

thanks...

Mick

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I have two 6.5 gal carboys, and three 5 gal carboys, and use all 5 of them as primary fermenters. I try to plan it so that the lower OG brews that don't need as much headspace end up in the smaller carboys. I also scale my recipes slightly depending on what size fermenter is available, so that I maximize the volume while still allowing enough room for the krausen.

msa8967 said:

OK, my SWMBO bought me two glass carboys for Christmass a 5 gallon and a 6 gallon. If racking to a secondary is only needed for dry-hopping and some 2 stage fermentation brews, what can I do with these 2 glass carboys? Can I use these as extra primaries provided I leave enough head space? Are there other uses for them?

Sorry for asking what may a basic question but there have been a lot different opinions expressed here and I want to know if I should keep these or downsize.

thanks...

Mick

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I have 6 gallon carboys that I use. They are perfect for wine kits, as they come in 6 gallon (23 liter) sizes. But I use them for beer primary also. I just attach a blow-off tube for the first couple days.

5 gallon is perfect for secondary or long term aging in 5 gallon beer batches, due to the low head space one gets (as you likely already know). And moving to a secondary does free up that primary.

There is nothing wrong with doing secondary ferments, it's just not absolutely necessary for alot of beers.

Revvy, you have been and always will be my hero.....

I just bottled my Pliny clone after 14 days in the primary and 14 days dry-hopping in the same primary. The 1/2 beer I had left over was absolutely amazing. I can't wait for the batch to carb up. I am officially in now, no more secondary transfers for my beer, period.

I hate to bring life back to an old thread, but this was very useful to me as a beginner. I have done 3 unsuccessful (don't really know why) batches, and getting ready to buy another kit (old stuff left in previous home in another state. I was unsure whether to go with bucket, buckets, carboy, better bottle, etc. I am not looking for a reply to this because the subject has been beaten to death. I value most of the opinions on here and take some with a grain of salt. I have now made a decision to buy the cheapest kit with one plastic bucket as primary, and a bottling bucket. Worst case: I don't like it and can upgrade later. If it works out fine, I save close to $50 (a lot of money for me right now).

heck i use my bottling bucket as my primary. Just make sure that you spray some star san solution before and after opening the spigot to draw samples. I couldn't be happier. The only thing i don't like is not being able to see the precious but that can also be a good thing.

hahaha... "the precious". I just watched a video on youtube last night of the magic in a glass fermenter. That made me want glass, but my wallet and fear of dropping it makes me think otherwise.... for now.

This has been a great thread....

It has opened my eyes to dropping the secondary, at least to see what comes.

The following has occurred to me regarding this sacred hobby. It's about half science and half black magic. This comes from someone who makes their living in research where good science is the only consideration.

I have an Aunt who makes a killer pecan pie. She has blue ribbons to prove it and my taste buds for support. She has a recipe which my wife (who is a great cook) has used a number of times to make this pie. When she makes it, it's good. When my Aunt makes it, it's great.

Now I'm fairly certain my aunt doesn't monitor the pH, add minerals to the tap water, or pursue any other scientific methods for creating this pie. Whatever she does, it works. Her pie is outstanding...

So, I concede, some things in this world may be of value without a scientific basis. Whether or not they will work for me... now that's another story.

Cheers....

Quick question. The last brew I did I left in the primary for 4 weeks and then bottle. On bottling day I used corn sugar and I put about a table spoon of rehydrated yeast in with it. The beer carbed up great. THIS time I bottled after 4 weeks with carb tabs and I didnt add any extra yeast... Does anyone have any experience with this and did I make a mistake?

So I made my first all grain cream ale recipe last weekend and I tried using my auto suction device to transfer the wort into the bottling bucket but it just seemed to clog up too much so I just dumped the whole thing in. I am thinking about transfering this to a glass carboy for a secondary and would like to know how long the beer should be left in the primary before making it to the secondary? My goal is to try to produce a clearer beer than what is in there now. Should I give it 1 more week or transfer it after 7 days?