secondary?

How many of you use a secondary this days?

-1

I haven't used one for awhile. Just don't see the point.

bdonjbarbee said:

How many of you use a secondary this days?

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Only in exceptional circumstances.

FWIW, you may not get much action on this post. Search "primary vs. Secondary" or something similar... You'll find a zillion posts as this was recently (re)hashed out in a number of threads

Only if I need to free up a primary.

It's what everybody did back when I started. I do it because
it makes me feel beer about the final product. After 20 years
of using secondaries and no issues from it I don't see any reason
to change. It's part of my process / habit.

OG2620 said:

Only if I need to free up a primary.

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+1

And once where my beer was cloudier that I wanted so that was put in secondary for a week or so. I have even been doing my dry hopping in my primary.

I'm only posting to let you know there are still people who use Secondaries regularly. I leave my beers in Primary for at least 2 weeks, and I secondary about 95% of my beers, Main reasons:

- I harvest yeast from most batches, and believe it is healthier if I don't leave it under pressure for too long.
- I dry hop about half my beers, and don't want to have hops in the yeast I am harvesting.
- Yeast does become canibalistic, and autolysis is real. Many of my beers are a couple of months in fermenters, and I would prefer not to have them on a lot of decaying yeast during that time. I will agree that most of the time you can't notice it, but it is going on, and I don't want my beer on it.
- About 25% of my beers are Belgians that I ferment hot. Heat accelerates the decay of the yeast; again I don't want my beer on decaying yeast.
- I use enclosed fermenters (no lid, just a 2" hole in the top), and they are a ***** to clean if you leave all that kraeusen debris at the top to dry out too long.
- Habit.

I've done a couple of quick beers (4 weeks) and left them on Primary the whole time and they have been fine, but I guess it is part of my routine that every beer gets moved after about 2 weeks (fermentation finished + extra time for diecetyl rest), some take longer than 2 weeks.

OG2620 said:

Only if I need to free up a primary.

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I no longer differentiate what a "primary" is, for container type. I buy the 5 gallon carboys (which are really 5.5 - so I have .5 of head space) and use a blow off tube. After 30 days on yeast, aging is done in a keg.

I am about to start lagering, I will use a secondary for aging for that purpose, since a keg won't fit in my ferm chamber (or maybe it will...something I should probably measure)

Calder said:

- I dry hop about half my beers, and don't want to have hops in the yeast I am harvesting.

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A +1 to that reason to use a secondary.

shutupjojo said:

It's what everybody did back when I started. I do it because
it makes me feel beer about the final product. After 20 years
of using secondaries and no issues from it I don't see any reason
to change. It's part of my process / habit.

Click to expand...

I'm just the opposite. When I started (< 1 year ago) the concesses seemed to be no need for a secondary. I do secondary when I plan to wash yeast in a batch that calls for dry hopping. I'm about to brew a Wee Heavy that I'll also secondary, but only because it will need a month or two of secondary time. It will get 3-4 weeks primary and then 1-2 months secondary.

Another reason is because that damn EdWort has my 5 gallon carboy stuck full of his apfelwein since September.

I don't do secondaries for flavor reasons, but it seems like a get a bunch of crap in the bottom of my kegs if I don't secondary. I hate taking a keg somewhere, and having to wait an hour for the beer to settle before serving it. My secondaried beers can get shook to heck and back, and still pour clear from the keg.

Perhaps I need to cold crash more, or use gelatin though.