I know I've asked the "do you secondary" question before, but I keep on bumping into reasons why I could imagine one might... and I'll be brewing one of them on Friday.
I'm doing a relatively high gravity barleywine. I have expectations that this beer will want to sit for 6-9 months before being ready to rock and roll. In such a case, would you move to secondary, or would you transfer to a keg after 4-6 weeks in lieu of secondary... or would you just leave it on the yeast cake for the whole 6-9 months and do a vodka airlock, etc?
I already have an olde ale that I made earlier this fall, and I did move it to secondary... but I don't mind the idea of tying up vessels at all... it's more whether there's a benefit to the quality of the brew. If there's no reason to secondary this beer (there will be no dry hop) then ... but I was thinking that by the time this yeast is near completion, this will be like a pretty brutal environment for what's trying to live in my beer.
I'm doing a relatively high gravity barleywine. I have expectations that this beer will want to sit for 6-9 months before being ready to rock and roll. In such a case, would you move to secondary, or would you transfer to a keg after 4-6 weeks in lieu of secondary... or would you just leave it on the yeast cake for the whole 6-9 months and do a vodka airlock, etc?
I already have an olde ale that I made earlier this fall, and I did move it to secondary... but I don't mind the idea of tying up vessels at all... it's more whether there's a benefit to the quality of the brew. If there's no reason to secondary this beer (there will be no dry hop) then ... but I was thinking that by the time this yeast is near completion, this will be like a pretty brutal environment for what's trying to live in my beer.