glass carboy????

I am waiting on my first brew. It is in the primary fermenter right now. I have a secondary fermenter that is a glass carboy. My instructions say that after 1 week the wert should be transfered to the glass carboy. Why is this done?

I am in florida so room temp is around 80. I have been keeping the primary fermenter on an ice bath around 70 degrees. When I transfer to the glass carboy does it need to be cool and out of light as well?

Thanks

The secondary is really a clearing tank... and most people never use them.

Basically the idea was to rack the beer off the sediment after primary fermentation and let it age further in the secondary, or clearing tank.

Really, this can all be done in the primary, which is why many people do not secondary thier beers anymore.

Use it if you like, but there are some advantages to keeping the beer on the yeast cake a while. It allows the yeast to clean up any undesireable components from thier week long orgy and drinking binge.

I keep my beer in the primary for 3 weeks or so, and do not secondary.

After beer is fermented/fermenting, it needs to stay out of UV light. If you are aging your beer in a secondary, it does not need to be temp controlled if the yeast are not working.

Most kits will instruct you to move the beer to a secondary after a week. They also kind of rush the process. This knowledge is a little out dated. A lot of us here have started skipping the secondary, except under certain occasions. Those would include long term bulk aging, dry hopping and adding fruit.

For a normal ale, its ok to leave it in the primary for 3-4 weeks. This will allow fermentation to fully finish, and let the yeast clean up after themselves. This helps reduce off flavors in the final beer. Its good that you are keeping the beer cool. If you were to secondary, room temp is usually ok. 80 might be pushing it though.

Damn Pol, you just beat me! I blame the delicious sweet and sour chicken I just finished cooking. Taking bites made me loose precious seconds.

Edcculus said:

Damn Pol, you just beat me! I blame the delicious sweet and sour chicken I just finished cooking. Taking bites made me loose precious seconds.

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Maybe next time... sucka!

So then I can start a second batch and use my glass carboy as my primary fermenter?

My kit that I purchased came with a large plastic pail as the primary fermenter and the glass carboy as the secondary.

I will let it sit for 4 weeks in the primary then. When I bottle it, how long should I let condition in the bottles?

You could do this in theory. However, you have to be careful because if you are brewing anything that isn't low gravity, you will have some serious blow-off. Any brew that would have a fairly active fermentation is going to make your 5 gallon carboy insufficient as far as volume. You need a fair amount of head space in the carboy in order to do a primary fermentation because the krausen needs space.

stitchlips said:

So then I can start a second batch and use my glass carboy as my primary fermenter?

My kit that I purchased came with a large plastic pail as the primary fermenter and the glass carboy as the secondary.

I will let it sit for 4 weeks in the primary then. When I bottle it, how long should I let condition in the bottles?

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Be careful fermenting in a 5 gallon... not much headspace.

Transfer your beer to secondary and throw your fresh wort on the yeast cake left behind. This is more desireable when you have some fancy $8 yeast or something you harvested from a bottle; but it's good practice anyway. Out of the light unless it's a Corona clone.

-OCD

OK then thanks. Maybe I will pick up another 6.5 gal platic bucket. Is there any advantage to glass over plastic?

No major advantages but there are some minor ones.
1) Glass is much harder and therefore more resistant to scratching. If you get scratches in your plastic bucket you will need a new one because bad things reside in those scratches and can make your beer taste... funny.
2) Glass allows you to take a look at the beer while it is fermenting. Not important but boy is it cool! Especially if you use White Labs WLP002 - this yeast looks like cottage cheese swimming around in your beer. For the new brewer it is pretty neat to get to see the yeast in action and will help you better visualize what is going on in there.

Other than that, no real advantage to glass over plastic.

Most plastics are oxygen permeable... during fermentation this isn't a big deal because all of the CO2 being produced will keep the O2 out. However, once fermentation stops, the oxygen starts seeping in and will often have an undesirable effect on the flavor of your beer. Glass on the other hand will keep everything nice and airtight. If you're not aging in a plastic fermenter for very long it won't be a big deal, however if you're going to let your beer age/clarify for a while you probably want to transfer from a plastic primary to a glass secondary.

sammykap said:

If you're not aging in a plastic fermenter for very long it won't be a big deal, however if you're going to let your beer age/clarify for a while you probably want to transfer from a plastic primary to a glass secondary.

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What length of time in the plastic fermenter is too long? So this 5 gallon glass carboy that came with the kit is just extra $$$$$$?

How long do you let the beer sit in the bottles? My instructions say 2-4 weeks.

I'd say if you're going to leave it in there for more than a week after fermentation is done you should probably transfer to the carboy. I usually go for 2-3 weeks in the carboy after fermentation has stopped to let the beer clarify and age a bit (looks and tastes significantly better)

As far as bottling goes, 2-4 weeks is a little longer than necessary. I usually let my bottles sit for a week at fermentation temps after priming a 5 gal batch with 3/4 of a cup of corn sugar (add the sugar to the batch BEFORE bottling... don't add it to the individual bottles).

You won't see any negative effects from oxidation in plastic unless you long term age (6+ months). The glass carboy isn't useless though, its an extra fermenter! Whip up another batch and get it going in that.

As for bottles, 2 weeks is too short. They should be fully carbed at 3 weeks, but more time never hurts.

Bottle conditioning for 2-4 weeks is a good rule of thumb. Generally, the longer you wait, the better your beer is going to be. Only to an extent though. The law of diminishing returns will apply to bottle conditioning.

The 5 gallon carboy isn't really a waste of $$$. If you ever do an IPA you are likely going to be dryhopping. For this you will want to have the beer in a secondary vessel. (Note: IPA are not the only beers that get dry hopped, but I chose them because it is so common). Also, if you ever make a beer with fruit or other additive you may want to add them after fermentation in which case secondary is a good way to do it. Finally, if you do a really high gravity beer that needs a long conditioning time (belgian, Imperial etc), you are going to want to rack to secondary.

BackBayBrewing said:

The 5 gallon carboy isn't really a waste of $$$. If you ever do an IPA you are likely going to be dryhopping. For this you will want to have the beer in a secondary vessel

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What does IPA mean? and just to make sure the five gallon glass carboy is too small to ferment in correct?

Thanks for all the help.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the bottling procedure.
When bottling, the best/easiest way to do it is to boil up the priming sugar in a small amount of water, optionally cool it, add it to the bottling bucket, and then rack the beer from the fermenter onto the priming solution in the bucket. You can then bottle from the bucket without picking up trub. If your primary fermenter has a spigot, and you don't have a separate bottling bucket, you may want to transfer to the secondary, clean and sanitize the bucket, and then transfer back to the bucket for bottling. If you don't have a bottling bucket, you may want to get one. I've never tried bottling directly from a fermenter, but I can't imagine that it would be fun.

-a.

stitchlips said:

What does IPA mean? and just to make sure the five gallon glass carboy is too small to ferment in correct?

Thanks for all the help.

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IPA = India Pale Ale - You really are new to this. I am excited for you because you are going to have a lot of fun getting into brewing (and drinking) the great beer that you make.

BackBayBrewing said:

IPA = India Pale Ale - You really are new to this. I am excited for you because you are going to have a lot of fun getting into brewing (and drinking) the great beer that you make.

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Your right, I am new to this. I just got my kit on this past Saturday. I think this is what I am going to do.

My primary does have a spigot so I will pick another plastic primary with no spigot and use that from now on and use my primary with the spigot as a bottling bucket.

Tell me if this sounds like a good plan. Let my wert sit in the primary for two weeks. Rack into my glass carboy and let it sit for two weeks, this would free up my primary so that I could start another batch. I want to make sure that when I go into the secondary, does it need to sit in the ice bath as well?

I am having fun already. Also can I re-use commercial beer bottles if they are not twist off caps?

your plan for the new plastic bucket and the bottling bucket sounds good. Also, you plan for primary and secondary sounds pretty good as well. I would mention one thing though. In practice this strategy may work fine, but the only way to really know if fermentation is complete is to take a gravity reading one day, and another the next day. If the reading doesn't change, then fermentation is complete. I don't know if your kit came with a hydrometer however.

As for commercial bottles, you can reuse commercial pry-off bottles. Just make sure that you clean them very well. When you drink them, make sure that you promptly rinse them out with water. This will help a great deal for cleaning them when bottling day arrives.

Welcome to your new hobby, StitchLips.
As you have read - there are many variations - use a secondary, don't use a secondary...
Each of us learned in our own way, picked up a few morsels, and we do what we think works best for us. You will find this too. Nothing is set in stone.

I've been fermenting in 5G glass carboys for years - I just end up with about 4.5g after the yeast get busy and blow krausen out the top. And I secondary after 2-3 weeks, for another 2-3 weeks.

One tidbit I'd share - Fermentation Temps are important. Keep the wort at the range the yeast are recommended for. My beers are so much better since I started paying attention to keeping my ales at about 65F. In a tub of water, the beer and the water are close, but if you've got it in a fridge, you'll need to set the fridge at 58 to keep 65F during the first several days.

Good luck, have fun!