I'm bringing back the "Is secondary necessary?" argument

I have dihydrogen monoxide for sale! $5/pint -- heluva deal

I am selling dihydrogen monoxide with NH2Cl additions for $6/pint.

In my opinion, I don't care what anyone else thinks. If I want to let my beer sit in a secondary for a while, then I will do that. If I want to let it sit on the yeast in the primary for 3 weeks, then I will do that. It comes down to personal preference and your own experience. After all, the majority of people posting here are not going to be drinking your beer, you are. This debate is almost as bad as politics. People have their own beliefs, and you will not convince them otherwise, so just do what you feel makes the best beer to your tastes.

There are many topics that this forum gives excellent advice on, but in this case, I think its completely up to your own preference over what is the "best method", because I would have to believe both methods will produce fantastic beer, and both don't really have a significant advantage or disadvantage.

Hugh_Jass said:

The dominatrix brewer has spoken.......well said Yoop.

IMO, if you pitch the proper amount of fresh, healthy yeast into a properly sanitized container and control ferment temps, there should be very few of the "off flavors" for the yeast to re-digest.

10-14 days is my window for ales in primary, too. OTOH, after the beer is racked, it usually sits in a keg for a month or two. I guess that would be considered a bright tank.

Edited to add it really isn't, or shouldn't be, an argument. It's your beer, treat it how you choose.

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Uh, I'm Hugh Jass

As some of the others said it's a combination of old info and business opportunity. I mean the guy at the LHBS probably isn't intentionally trying to rip you off by selling you a $25 extra vessel. Most of the most commonly cited literature in homebrewing still says to use a secondary. At best he lacks knowledge. At worst he's taking advantage of the ambiguity present in the available literature.

As for me, I've tried both schools of thought and many processes in between. What I've settled on that works for me is a 7-14 day primary (7 days is typically for low grav beers). Then I use my secondary as more of a bright beer tank, since I still bottle. I transfer to the secondary and cold crash for a few days. I've found, for me, this allows for the transfer of the least amount of yeast to the bottle of all the processes I've tried. But, it's really whatever works for you.

bruin_ale said:

BTW, my statement isn't meant to knock all LHBS owners. I realize there are quite a few that are still on these boards, still reading the latest books and doing experiments to better their beer - I'm not talking about those guys. Just that many of the stores I've got in my area don't do this stuff and it feels like they read the 1st edition of Palmer's "How to Brew" thirty years ago and think they know it all.

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Agreed. The LHBS owners on this board are some of the most knowledgeable home brewers. But there are plenty of LHBS owners that follow really out dated info.

I love reading threads where people get all worked up about what other people do with beer they will never drink

mostly the reason i secondary is because i get bored with it sitting in a primary for three weeks and i want to fiddle with it. putting it in a secondary gives me something to do, plus, i like to have it in a clear vessel for awhile so i can stare at it. i don't care if its an extra, useless step, because i have free time and thats how i like to spend it.

frydogbrews said:

mostly the reason i secondary is because i get bored with it sitting in a primary for three weeks and i want to fiddle with it. putting it in a secondary gives me something to do, plus, i like to have it in a clear vessel for awhile so i can stare at it. i don't care if its an extra, useless step, because i have free time and thats how i like to spend it.

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Not allowed. Sorry.

Zixxer10R said:

This weekend i had a nice conversation with my LHBS owner about how i wasn't secondary-ing any longer just because i had been convinced on this forum that most people aren't using this step any longer.

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I wouldn't do everything my local home brew shop owner tells me to do (and I have an excellent lhbs) just as i don't do everything I read about on this or any other forum. I will however explore different options if they seem to make sense. There are very few things IMHO that have to be done a certain way.

You have apparently done secondaries and not done them so you can decide for yourself if they are worth doing.

JJL said:

As for me, I've tried both schools of thought and many processes in between. What I've settled on that works for me is a 7-14 day primary (7 days is typically for low grav beers). Then I use my secondary as more of a bright beer tank, since I still bottle. I transfer to the secondary and cold crash for a few days. I've found, for me, this allows for the transfer of the least amount of yeast to the bottle of all the processes I've tried. But, it's really whatever works for you.

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Being a rookie but I agree with this being a good enough reason for secondary.

Airborneguy said:

If you feel the need, then do it.

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I feel like that is the best answer to so many questions.

I think the question of "should i do ____ with my beer", should always depend on what the final goal is.

Baldy_Beer_Brewery said:

I wouldn't do everything my local home brew shop owner tells me to do (and I have an excellent lhbs) just as i don't do everything I read about on this or any other forum. I will however explore different options if they seem to make sense. There are very few things IMHO that have to be done a certain way.

You have apparently done secondaries and not done them so you can decide for yourself if they are worth doing.

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Agreed. While this site is a great source of home brewing information and has really helped me to make good quality (even award winning!) beer, I don't follow everything that I see on here. Proper temperature control, correct yeast pitching rates (make a damn starter!), and a solid recipe will almost always yield a quality beer. Some people take the attention to details(ie efficiency) too far in my opinion and that starts to make brewing more like work and not so much fun.

However, I digress. I don't bother with secondaries. I primary for two-three weeks and transfer to my kegs. The beer is going to sit in my keg at 38F for at least two weeks while carbing - so any yeast in suspension is going to settle out. I think using a secondary unnecessarily risks potential infection and exposure of your beer to oxygen.

Airborneguy said:

I love reading threads where people get all worked up about what other people do with beer they will never drink

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I don't think anyone is getting particularly worked up. If this isn't a place to analyze and potentially dispel conventional wisdom about best practices in homebrewing, what is it? I won't drink 99.99% of beer made by people on this forum but it doesn't mean I'm packing up and leaving.

A couple years ago, there was a BYO experiment or article where over 20 homebrewed beers were tested in a lab for various common contaminants and I do recall noticing a significant positive correlation between infected samples and the brewer's use of a secondary. I can't find the damn article but I do remember they weren't even testing for this particular phenomena and it was never mentioned.

Bobby_M said:

I won't drink 99.99% of beer made by people on this forum but it doesn't mean I'm packing up and leaving.

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Won't or wouldn't? Just trying to figure out if we should be offended or not!

Secondaries are a thing of the past for me. My personal experience is I make better beer since I dropped them. Dry hop in the keg, if required, after typically 10 to 14 days in primary for most ales. (confirming I'm at final gravity). Transfer infection and oxidation risks are more impacting than anything coming off of such a short time period on the yeast.

Here you go. Temp controlled pale ale left in primary for 3 weeks. Gelatin added to the primary and cold crashed for the last few days then kegged. When I took the pic it had only been in the keg for 48hrs and this was the second glass. If you put it next to SNPA it is equally clean and clear in flavor and appearance.

Still want to secondary? Go ahead...

Bobby_M said:

A couple years ago, there was a BYO experiment or article where over 20 homebrewed beers were tested in a lab for various common contaminants and I do recall noticing a significant positive correlation between infected samples and the brewer's use of a secondary. I can't find the damn article but I do remember they weren't even testing for this particular phenomena and it was never mentioned.

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Might be this article (I had it bookmarked for the IBU measurement stuff). Halfway through they test for contaminants. 12 years ago... things have improved greatly in the area of sanitation since then.

http://brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue7.1/bonham.html

Revvy said:

3-5 threads a day about this aren't enough for you?

Just read this. Every debate, discussion, scientific reason, argument, reargument, re-discussion, re-debate, and every guestion has been done ad nauseum in that thread, and about a thousand others, but that one seems to be the best.

Heck, just print it out and hand it to him. Or just let him believe what he believe, and believe what you believe.

Do you really feel the need to re-invent the wheel for the 30 millionth time? We've been talking about it for 4 years on here. There's plenty of information on here already without rehashing the same useless arguments over and over.

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Well said Revvy. Who cares? If you like using a secondary and if the beer tastes good in the end do it. If not, don't. Or there's option #3: Use the secondary when you feel like it. This is beer, not rocket science...

To me, beer starts to taste nasty if it's been in a secondary. I mean, you wouldn't wouldn't prefer "second"-hand clothes, would you? How about sloppy "seconds"?

I rest my case.

Homercidal said:

To me, beer starts to taste nasty if it's been in a secondary. I mean, you wouldn't wouldn't prefer "second"-hand clothes, would you? How about sloppy "seconds"?

I rest my case.

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ewww!! second-hand clothing!!! grossssss!!!

I like boysenberry syrup on my pancakes . . . . .

passedpawn said:

Might be this article (I had it bookmarked for the IBU measurement stuff). Halfway through they test for contaminants. 12 years ago... things have improved greatly in the area of sanitation since then.

http://brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue7.1/bonham.html

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Interesting but no, it was more like 2 years ago. Now that I think of it, maybe it wasn't even BYO. Damn memory.

Either Zymurgy or BYO did an experiment comparing the two camps, but the methodology wasn't very precise and there results were mixed. In a blatant appeal to authority, Gordon Strong and Jamil Z. both recommend only using secondaries for fruit, sours or heavily dry hopped beers.

rockfish42 said:

Either Zymurgy or BYO did an experiment comparing the two camps, but the methodology wasn't very precise and there results were mixed. In a blatant appeal to authority, Gordon Strong and Jamil Z. both recommend only using secondaries for fruit, sours or heavily dry hopped beers.

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Must have been the basic brewing dudes who did that experiment. I love those guys, but their experiments are usually fairly crude and open to all sorts of variations, leading to inconclusion.

Which may support the theory that in a lot of cases, the precise method may not be all that important when brewing...

rockfish42 said:

Either Zymurgy or BYO did an experiment comparing the two camps, but the methodology wasn't very precise and there results were mixed. In a blatant appeal to authority, Gordon Strong and Jamil Z. both recommend only using secondaries for fruit, sours or heavily dry hopped beers.

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I generally dislike appeals to authority, but in this case they are both multi-year Ninkasi winners so it's at least proof that their methodology isn't flawed completely.

Damn, I wish I could remember what the key variable the experiment was testing for. I distinctly remember that it had something to do with contamination/infections in homebrew but that they ignored the use or lack of use of a secondary as a factor.

In my opinion, there is no need for a long primary, UNLESS you like the flavors that staying on the yeast that long adds to the beer. Many people do like these flavors (a touch bready/yeasty), others do not. A long primary won't hurt your beer, but it won't necessarily make your beer better - unless you want those flavors. There is plenty of yeast in suspension though to do any "cleaning up" that might be necessary. The yeast that have settled out are not that metabolically active so don't really contribute much to any "cleaning up", but will impart some flavors.

For those of us who keg, the keg really is as Yooper said, a bright tank ("secondary")

There may be some benefit to bulk aging for those who bottle (keggers are always bulk aging - unless you drink it up right away ). For bottlers then there is the question of "secondary" or not. That is a personal choice, and depends on your taste buds. It has been shown by people who are well respected brewers that there is a definite difference in the two methods, but some folks preferred the tasted of one way, and some the other.