My first secondary. I officially HATE secondary

I'm axing the issue of whether or not secondary is for me or not. I am doing a Dubbel. Its been in primary for 1 month. I figure I would bulk age this bad boy to help all the flavors evenly meddle. I buy a nice secondary, stopper and airlock. I rack into the secondary with the star san snake working up my leg... I put the stopper in, slide in the airlock, and watch the stopper slowly rise out, and sit wobbly on top of the carboy. It sank in a bit, but did not Feel air tight, by my own wobble check. I devised a solution on a whim, I pulled 2 strips of duct tape, pushed the stopper all the way in, and taped across the top of the stopper. It seems to be holding, I sure hope this little 2 minutes of open top, or semi open top doesn't ruin my batch. I wouldnt normally care if my fermenter lid was off too long, since there is that nice bed of CO2 ontop, but I am a little nervous now. I'll be bottling in a month or so, so I guess around april I'll have an idea. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and will HAHB, and probably forget I even had this issue when the time for bottling comes. Just venting...

I know how you feel. I've pushed too hard on the stoppers, and PLOP! into the carboy they went.

You can use a clean papertowel and dry the neck of the carboy inside, and dry off the stopper and then it'll stay just fine. It only slides like that when it's slippery wet with star-san.

Try one of the bungs rather than a stopper. They fit snugly, even when wet.

Thanks for the tip, yooper... the picture gnome attached is the syle I have... Should I remove tape and dry, or let it sit wet? Im only concerned if somehow the star san would get funky, like moldy or mildewy... I'm assuming not since its star san?

^^^ you said "bung"

DansBrew said:

I rack into the secondary with the star san snake working up my leg.

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This right here is your problem. Do not stand in the secondary.

EvilGnome6 said:

Try one of the bungs rather than a stopper. They fit snugly, even when wet.

View attachment 14629

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I have the opposite problem. I have one carboy that must have a slightly smaller neck than others. The bung you show there will NOT stay firmly in the carboy, but a solid stopper does...

It would take along time for starsan to get funky. A lot longer than the 1 mounth until bottleing your waiting.

carboy caps will avoid the problem of the stopper moving around. I had the same problem until I went to carboy caps.

Yooper is dead on. Star san is slippery. That's one of the reasons I always use a blow off for my primary. Too many times the airlock slipped out of the primary. So...it's not a secondary problem...but a stopper one.

Hammy71 said:

Yooper is dead on. Star san is slippery. That's one of the reasons I always use a blow off for my primary. Too many times the airlock slipped out of the primary. So...it's not a secondary problem...but a stopper one.

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I don't think the stopper was broken. It's a Star San problem. I use it, but on stoppers, racking canes, hoses, it's just too slippery. Rinsing never hurt.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/carboy-cap-6-5-gallon-carboys.html

Problem Solved

never been to midwest before. ill definitely be ordering from them in the very near future.

I dont think that is a valid reason to hate secondaries, and it is an easy problem to fix. as people have said make sure the bung is dry and its works great, the short time the beer was even exposed to air, if it even was will most likely have no effect on your brew and just seems like needless worry

+1 on starsan being slippery. I have the exact same thing with my better bottle and stopper. I just set it on top then come back in an hour or so when it's tried and push it down. Problem solved. Has nothing to do with secondary. If you did a primary with the same setup, you'd get the same thing happening.

just because SS is slippery don't talk SWMBO in to using it as

I had the same problems with the universal and sold bungs. Both would work their way out too often.

So i bought the carboy caps on someones recommendation. The problem I had with those is that they didn't form an air tight seal. While primary fermentation was going on there was no air lock movement, if I squeezed the cap tight around the carboy lip, it would immediately start bubbling.

So, now I use carboy caps and zip tie everyone of them in place and have had no problems since.

I like the duck tape idea. If it can't be fixed with a little or lot of duck tape, it can't be fixed!!!!!!!!

DansBrew said:

I sure hope this little 2 minutes of open top, or semi open top doesn't ruin my batch. I wouldnt normally care if my fermenter lid was off too long, since there is that nice bed of CO2 ontop, but I am a little nervous now.

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If you think about it the short time you exposed your beer to air is the equivalent of taking a sample for a gravity reading. I wouldn't sweat it, it is going to be a tasty dubbel.

The duct tape was spur of the moment. While cursing, and turning my head up to curse at the beer gods, I saw the roll of duct tape above me on a shelf. I agree that if ya can't duct it, fu@k it... I might not hate secondary now, knowing that I can remedy this problem next time, without the use of duct tape...

DansBrew said:

While cursing, and turning my head up to curse at the beer gods, I saw the roll of duct tape above me on a shelf...

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See, they *are* looking out for you...

On the advice of a better brewer than I am, I quit doing secondaries and have never looked back. Less chance of contamination and a lot less cleanup.

I'm thinking about doing the same unless I'll be dry hopping a lot in which case I'll move to secondary.

+1 to no secondary. The less you move your beer the better.

Instead of duct tape, I insert the stopper and immediately wrap it to the carboy with 6-8 inches of Saran Wrap. It's not oxygen permeable, and keeps dust and crap (=bacteria) from settling on the carboy lip. It also won't leave adhesive for you to clean up later like duct tape will. And it holds the stopper in just as well.

Secondary .. how old school.