How long should I let my stout go for (in primary and secondary)??

Hi All,

I'm a noob and just brewed my first partial mash, which is a 34 IBU oatmeal stout with 1 cup of jaggery palm sugar as an adjunct. The OG was 1.055 and I was wondering how long one might recommend leaving it in primary (and in secondary) to get the best results?

Thanks!
p

A lot of folks (myself included) use the 1-2-3 rule for most beers.

1 week primary
2 week secondary
3 week bottle

others do 3 primary & 3 week bottle.
This reduces risk of contamination when transferring to 2ndary & probably removes more diacetyl from your beer as it's on the yeast longer.

Either way is just fine IMHO.

You will find that many, many of us leave our beers a minimum of 3-4 weeks in primary, then bottle, skipping secondary all together....We have found that the extra time in contact with the yeast improves clarity, and taste, by allowing the yeast to clean up the byproducts of fermentation.

After the first few batches very few of us adhere to the 1-2-3 rule...Because we have found much improvement in our beer by not following that methodolgy.

A stout will only improve with time...

culaslucas said:

A lot of folks (myself included) use the 1-2-3 rule for most beers.

1 week primary
2 week secondary
3 week bottle

others do 3 primary & 3 week bottle.
This reduces risk of contamination when transferring to 2ndary & probably removes more diacetyl from your beer as it's on the yeast longer.

Either way is just fine IMHO.

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Thanks! I did use Irish Ale Yeast. So, good to know regarding the diacetyl...
-p

Revvy said:

You will find that many, many of us leave our beers a minimum of 3-4 weeks in primary, then bottle, skipping secondary all together....We have found that the extra time in contact with the yeast improves clarity, and taste, by allowing the yeast to clean up the byproducts of fermentation.

After the first few batches very few of us adhere to the 1-2-3 rule...Because we have found much improvement in our beer by not following that methodolgy.

A stout will only improve with time...

Click to expand...

Thanks for the response! I think I'll go with 4 weeks on the yeast...

Best,
p

Don't let it go too long on the trub or some off sediment flavors could develop; no more than a month, fyi.

brewer_duke said:

Don't let it go too long on the trub or some off sediment flavors could develop; no more than a month, fyi.

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Many people have successfully gone from 3-6 months in primary (accidently or on purpose) without ANY issue...so letting a beer go 4-6 weeks is nothing to worry about whatsoever...

Brewing culture has been getting away from the autolysis fear and actually finding the benefits of NOT rushing a beer off the yeast...even Palmer mentions it in "How to brew."

As a final note on this subject, I should mention that by brewing with healthy yeast in a well-prepared wort, many experienced brewers, myself included, have been able to leave a beer in the primary fermenter for several months without any evidence of autolysis....

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I suppose I would just wonder about benefits v. possible risk. Is there really any benefit to leaving a beer in the primary more than a month on all that trub? And I know there is a bit of risk in racking the beer to a secondary too though.
I always went by what Palmer said on page 92 of 'how to brew':
"And to minimize the risk of off-flavors from sitting on trub, extended conditioning should be done in a secondary fermenter."
Maybe all this worry about trub is just aprt of the winemaker in me screaming out too.