Unless you discover that a mischievous group of ants are performing recon inside your fermentation fridge to assault a giant malty vessel of goodness. I'd rather have an airlock on than leave it open as an ant cliff diving ledge. I am continually amazed at how resourceful they are at getting into places.
Why do you have ants inside of your house to begin with?
Why do you have ants inside of your house to begin with?
So when lagering most would advise racking to secondary?
Ah, the old oxidation bogeyman. Is fear of "oxidation" really still a thing?
The bottom line: your beer will have far less sediment with a secondary.
I'm going to have to agree with Adam. We go all out in brewing in all areasthen back off the secondary. Yeast starters, oxygen injectors, filters, ferm chambers etc. It's all added details to a simple task. In simplicity brewers, as with chefs, find complexity. When I started I was doing what the OP was doing. I was taking three weeks to bottle . 2 in the primary 1 in the second. That's with 2 primary's 1 secondary and brewing almost every week. I think secondary is useful and can be worthwhile. It should not be discarded as worthless. It should be thought of as something that takes some knowledge and care to do well and get benefits from. That being said I have been experimenting with primary only ie: 2 weeks primary cold crash 3 days, dry hop room temp 3 days, cold crash them keg and am pleased with the beer. But I will still secondary again. It will not leave my tool chest!
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I am not a professional brewer (just yet) but I have brewed in 3 different commercial breweries ranging in size from 7.5BBLs to 60BBLs. None of them secondary. Lets stop propagating this.
They do use bright tanks...for carbonating and serving or carbonating and packaging. Not to reduce sediment. Breweries use fining techniques or filtering, or centrifuging to clear their beer. Not secondaries....with obvious exceptions of barrel aging or fruit/spice beers of course.
Commercial breweries also don't use buckets and carboys. Should we stop that as well?
Commercial breweries typically ferment in cylindroconical vessels. When you can't dump the yeast and trub from the bottom, you can replicate that by transferring from one vessel to another. The schedules are certainly different between commercial brewing (where fermentation is healthy and optimized) and what's convenient for homebrewers.
If that's the bottom line, you're reading the wrong column.
Your beer will have far less sediment in the serving vessel, if you leave it behind when transferring. An additional transfer is not necessary.
+1 I fail to see a difference in sediment or clarity between a beer left in primary 2 weeks and a beer primaried 1 week/secondaried 1 week, speaking both conceptually and from experience. There is nothing magic about a second vessel that makes the yeast flocculate more.
Given enough time and careful racking, you can minimize sediment using either method.
The only argument that I buy for using secondary is minimizing yeast flavor by minimizing contact with the yeast cake. Not that I've experienced it myself, but I get the idea conceptually, and maybe someone with a more sensitive palate than myself might feasibly be able to tell the difference (I can't for the life of me).
I'm not disparaging the use of secondary (if it works for you, great), just refuting the idea that it somehow makes for clearer beer with less sediment. Time does that. Good racking practices do that. Cold crashing/fining agents/etc help.
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I get the idea of yeast flavor being imparted over time, but really, how much more could the yeast flavor the beer than they do when they're busy fermenting wort?
Quite a bit in some cases!
I don't use a secondary very often, but nor do I use a long primary like some others. Once the beer is done, and is clear, I package the beer. It may be day 10 or so. It depends on the beer, and the yeast strain, as some strains clear the beer better and faster than other strains.
Just like it’s been said that a lot of competition beers are oxidized because your average homebrewer is not good at racking, it’s also true that they will get clearer beer by using a secondary vessel for the same reason. It’s not “don’t secondary” that should be promoted. What’s needed is better racking skills. You still have to transfer beer to a bottling bucket or keg and have the same risks at that point. You don’t solve a problem by avoiding it.But don't do it and promote it based on falsehoods like it makes for clearer beer.
Its not dont secondary that should be promoted. Whats needed is better racking skills. You still have to transfer beer to a bottling bucket or keg and have the same risks at that point. You dont solve a problem by avoiding it.
I'm particularly interested in your opinion on this as I've heard you mention it before.
What does it taste like? What do you attribute the flavor to, I get that it has to do with the yeast, but there are always yeast in beer unless it is filtered, so what happens in that yeast cake that causes a yeasty flavor? Do you think it's something you're particularly sensitive to that a lot of other people aren't?
....its also true that they will get clearer beer by using a secondary vessel for the same reason.
Fixed that for you.I don't need a judge to tell me if he thinks my beer is oxidised when it apparently tastes so good that it gets consumed faster than the effects of oxidation are noticable.
Out of curiosity, what product are you using to prime those PET bottles?I do all my beers in a plastic bucket with a spigot. I bottle straight from the spigot.
ummm . . . guess you missed this part from that quote.How? . . . My beer is glass-clear coming out of primary.
Good for you if you're not one of those people.Just like it’s been said that a lot of competition beers are oxidized because your average homebrewer is not good at racking. . .
I don't think I"m particularly sensitive- but I do have a good palate and am a pretty decent BJCP judge.
I think everyone should do this for themselves. First, listen to a Basic Brewing Radio podcast on the subject. There was an experiment in which there were brewers doing two beers. One was traditional primary/secondary, one was primary only. All of the brewers tasting noted differences. What's interesting is that preference in flavor were evenly split- some liked the traditional batch better while others liked the primary only better. I think this was a couple of years ago, and itunes should have the podcast or on the BBR website.
I think if people like the flavor in their technique- long primary, shorter primary, primary/secondary, etc- they should do that. But before brewers preach one way over the other, they should do a taste test and see which they actually prefer. I think many brewers would be surprised, including the ones who use a month-long (or longer) primary.
I won't say that the yeast creates autolyzed flavors, as people would jump on that, but it definitely does have differences. Whether it's micro-oxidation, slight autolysis, more formation of esters due to chemical reactions, etc, I cannot say as I'm no chemist. Maybe the metabolism causes more ethyl hexanoate or ethyl butyrate in those cases. I don't think this has been well studied, but I also haven't really dug through any scientific papers on the subject either.
ummm . . . guess you missed this part from that quote.
its also true that they will get clearer beer by using a secondary vessel for the same reason.
Just like its been said that a lot of competition beers are oxidized because your average homebrewer is not good at racking, its equally wrong to assert that they will get clearer beer by using a secondary vessel for the same reason.....
For the record, I secondary most of my beers, but it has nothing to do with clarity.
Out of curiosity, what product are you using to prime those PET bottles?
She is just extremely cheap (maybe frugal is a nicer word?). She grew up really poor so she isn't used to being able to spend money. Also, she despises the smell of boiling wort and hops. I wasn't trying to portray her as a witch that never lets me do anything fun.
I primaried 3 weeks. Cold crashed 7days. Gelatin 3days. Secondary 1day to reach room temp. Dry hop 4 days. Clearest beer ever. 2" sediment. Can't wait to cold crash then keg. I transfer using CO2 no oxidation. And infection risk? Learn how to sanitize people. If that's a risk you are clueless as to how to clean your equipment.
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I primaried 3 weeks. Cold crashed 7days. Gelatin 3days. Secondary 1day to reach room temp. Dry hop 4 days. Clearest beer ever. 2" sediment. Can't wait to cold crash then keg. I transfer using CO2 no oxidation. And infection risk? Learn how to sanitize people. If that's a risk you are clueless as to how to clean your equipment.
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You cold crashing in a carboy/bucket? How do you keep oxygen out when dropping temps? This was the problem I had, ended up just transferring to pressurized keg, cold crash and gelatin in that and of course the gunk you comes out in the first half pint...
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