I want to add a second primary into the mix ideas??

First things first, I'm a college student so i go through a great deal of beer so making faster beers (wheats and light ales) is a must, but i also really want to brew a dark bourbon ale. I was thinking about adding a second primary to the mix maybe a 6.5 glass carboy (they just look so much cooler) but could a 6.5 gallon also double as a secondary if i want to make an ale later the doesn't have to sit in a secondary for 6 weeks or can a 6.5 even be a primary for 5 gallons of dark ale?

I am pretty new to Home brewing and have yet to bottle my first brew (lemon coriander weiss). Me and my roommates have had almost every beer our local liquor store has to offer so we began brewing our own and I can barely contain my urge to brew 15 different types at once. I guess what I'm to say is in a matter of 2 weeks I am already addicted to home brewing!

you should use a 5 gallon carboy for secondary fermentation. Less air space means less oxygen which equals better beer.

Why don't you buy 3-4 buckets for the price of one 6.5 gal carboy, skip using a secondary, and get to brewing.

Ichthy said:

Why don't you buy 3-4 buckets for the price of one 6.5 gal carboy, skip using a secondary, and get to brewing.

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Best bet for a poor college student. Screw looking at your beers. After the novelty wears off you'll be pitching your yeast and walking away for a month and not pay any attention, like the rest of us. Then rather than having 3-4 primaries you only have 2 1 bucket and one overpriced novelty.

Just buy a bucket or 3.

Most of the the beers i want to make need to go into a secondary for the addition of flavorings.

You can use an empty primary as a secondary if all your doing is adding flavorings. All we are saying is don't waste your money on a glass carboy when you can get 3 or 4 buckets for the price of one vessel. This will allow you to have mutliple beers going at once and reduce your overall waiting time for beer.

If you bought 3 more buckets you could always have 3 beers in primary and use the spare as your secondary. Just rack a finished beer to secondary, leave it for a week, then bottle. A little planning and you can come up with a good brewing schedule so this all works out and you keep the pipeline moving.

so the extra head space in the secondary won't cause any problems?

MSOE_HomeBrew said:

so the extra head space in the secondary won't cause any problems?

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I rarely use a clearing vessel ("secondary") but when I do, I make sure to match the size to the batch. In other words, you want a 5 gallon carboy for a 5 gallon batch to minimize headspace, especially if you are going to let it sit there for more than 2 weeks or so.

In primary, you need the headspace for the krausen and because the co2 is coming out, oxygen can't get in. In secondary, though, it's different. The beer is no longer producing co2, so you lose the benefit of the "blanket" of co2 that is in the headspace. A 6.5 gallon carboy is fine for primary, but not for secondary.

The other choice, as mentioned, is to skip using a clearing vessel anyway and bottle the beer out of primary in three weeks or so.

Now lets say I leave lemon weiss in my primary can I just add the lemon zest to the primary instead of racking it then adding it? The recipe said to rack it after a week in the primary then add the zest and let sit for 2 more weeks before bottling.

I agree with the buckets......so much cheaper. You might want to look at better bottles for secondaries as well. Light, cheaper and easier to store. But I totally can relate to the urge to brew as much as you can. Look at me....four secondaries, four kegs, and three primaries. I am going to brew that 100 gallons if it kills me.

MSOE_HomeBrew said:

Now lets say I leave lemon weiss in my primary can I just add the lemon zest to the primary instead of racking it then adding it? The recipe said to rack it after a week in the primary then add the zest and let sit for 2 more weeks before bottling.

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Sure, why couldn't you do that?

Yooper_Brew said:

Sure, why couldn't you do that?

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I don't know.. I'm starting to believe that brewing is more of an art than science. I'm in my 4th year of an electrical engineering degree with a minor in chem so I'm guess I was looking for cut n dry answers but what i need to do is stop trying to be so exact about brewing and find out what works the fun way. Tasting one HB after another.. The repeat.

MSOE_HomeBrew said:

I don't know.. I'm starting to believe that brewing is more of an art than science. I'm in my 4th year of an electrical engineering degree with a minor in chem so I'm guess I was looking for cut n dry answers but what i need to do is stop trying to be so exact about brewing and find out what works the fun way. Tasting one HB after another.. The repeat.

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It's all about experimanetat and more importantly what works for YOU. It's about your process.

You might be interested in this short lived thread. Craft brewing? NO, it's Art brewing!

Funny how many people got so torqued about it though.

It absolutely is an art, but there are a few science things that come in handy. For example, there's a thing called Boyle's Law that states as the volume containing a gas decreases, the pressure and temperature increase. This is why you want to do primary in a bucket and secondary in a carboy (PET Better Bottles are superior to glass IMO). The CO2 pressure will be evenly distributed during primary in the bucket, decreasing the chance of a blowout. In secondary, a small amount of CO2 is being generated that you want at a positive pressure in the neck of the carboy (see Boyle's Law above). As for durations, a good rule of thumb is two weeks in primary and a week in secondary for clarification.

Yeah I'm pretty familiar with that law (use it every week or so). I was worried about having the extra head space if I wanted to keep it in the primary for 3-4 weeks. I didn't really take into account that the heavier CO2 would settle on top and keep O2 out, but thanks for your help guys I'm looking forward to joining the HB community.

And revvy I have been reading your post on other threads. You're just amazing with your responses and the knowledge of brewing. I have learned a great deal just from you. Thanks a lot for your help!!

MSOE_HomeBrew said:

Most of the the beers i want to make need to go into a secondary for the addition of flavorings.

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4 6.5 gallon primaries could go into 3 6.5 gallon secondaries with a bare minimum of headspace. You'd be moving an original 20 gallons into a 19.5 gallon space... just about perfect after you account for the transfer / trub loss.

You need 7 buckets