Hefe in secondary?

I got myself a carboy for secondary fermentation and my batch of Hefeweizen is closing in on done in the primary. I was thinking I'd put it in the secondary for a week or two, since that seems to be the consensus for best taste. BUT... I also read a lot about how the secondary is mostly beneficial for "clearing up" a beer, whereas a Hefe would be naturally cloudy. Secondly, it is my understanding Hefe is one of the rare kinds where time is not a singlularly good thing -- drinking it in the first 3 months of life is best for taste. I have no doubt I can put away 50something bottles in 90 days (try 20 or 30, tops) but it gives me pause about doing the secondary route. Any thoughts on this?

About a 1/3 of my brews are HWs and I always do a secondary.

Other things like maturing and mellowing take place in the secondary.

Don't worry, there will still be enough yeast to make your brew cloudy.

Yeah, I had a hefe in the secondary for 40 days (admittedly too long!) and it's still cloudy. Clearing is a relative term.

This is happening as we speak. I went ahead and decided to rack my Hefe into a secondary two days ago. There was a very aggressive fermentation at first, and I was left with alot of krausen along the top of the carboy(and the sides, and underneath, and on the floor etc. etc.)

So I went ahead and racked to a secondary to get it into a cleaner carboy. Well, to my suprise its back into fermentation mode. Bubbling twice a minute again. Not much, I know, but still....its trying. I think I'll leave it in there for at least a week or so.

MrBulldogg said:

I also read a lot about how the secondary is mostly beneficial for "clearing up" a beer

Click to expand...

That's just part of it...here's one of our faqs on the subject.

El Pistolero said:

That's just part of it...here's one of our faqs on the subject.

Click to expand...

For some reason with the underlining I thought that said "one of our..." Well, nevermind.

Baron, I'm right with you there...I definitely did a double take. ElP, perhaps next time you should make use of the shift key/caps lock, i.e. "Here's one of our FAQ's on the subject..."

-Josh

What gave it away for me is that I know usmcruz doesn't have enough brewing knowledge rattling around up there to assemble into a faQ.

Roflmao!!:d