Primary to Secondary?

I have a 5 gal glass carboy that I use as my primary, and do not have a secondary. I am wondering if I could siphon the brew from my primary into my brewpot and sanitize the carboy and quickly use the same carboy as my secondary? Will this affect my brew?

I wouldn't bother, just leave it alone till you're ready to bottle, keg, whatever. There are plenty of people who don't do a secondary fermentation.

I think that two transfers plus having the beer sit in the open while you wash and resanitize the carboy is potentially much more damaging to the beer than leaving it sit on the crap that drops out in the primary.

Yeah, you can do that...I've done it when I had too many batches going at once and not enough carboys. It's not the best practice, of course, but if you sanitize well you'll be fine. Just remember not to aerate any more than absolutely necessary while you're siphoning.

After primary, your beer is beer, not wort anymore. It's mostly done fermenting and not as vulnerable to nasties as when it was wort. You can still get nasties at any point, though, of course.

Do you have a bottleing bucket? Maybe usethat as your primary and use your 5gal as a secondary. I've been thinking of using mine for just a primary for simple IPA's and Wheat ales to keep my supply up while i'm working on a few big brews.

HAPPY BREWING!!!

autoferret said:

Do you have a bottleing bucket? Maybe usethat as your primary and use your 5gal as a secondary.

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Yah, this is a pretty common thing to do if you only have a single carboy and abottling bucket. (I think BeeGee does this, too.)

Primary it the bucket.
Rack to carboy for secondary.
Rack back to bucket for bottling.

I've done batches like this before, but I've got so many friggin carboys now, I don't think I'll have to do it again.

-walker

any thoughts since I already have the brew in the carboy?

Imperial Walker said:

Yah, this is a pretty common thing to do if you only have a single carboy and abottling bucket. (I think BeeGee does this, too.)

Primary it the bucket.
Rack to carboy for secondary.
Rack back to bucket for bottling.

-walker

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That's how I roll. Downside is you can't have 2 going at the same time. Next purchase = 6.5 gal carboy.

gmeyers said:

any thoughts since I already have the brew in the carboy?

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Lots of people do primary in plastic buckets. A week or less in a clean, not scratched bucket with a good fitting lid is virtually as good as glass. So you really might consider that. Also, if your carboy is 5 gallons, the bucket is probably between 6 and 6.5, and would allow you to do 5.5 gallon batches comfortably without losing a bunch of vloume to blowoff like you would in a 5 gal carboy filled to the brim.

If doing primary in the carboy is really important to you, then I'd say buy another carboy, because racking to secondary really does improve the quality and especially the clarity of your brews. And the cleaning out the carboy and racking back into routine is not ideal: a very active primary leaves a pretty big kreusen mess in the carboy and you'd really like to be able to soak that gunk off and give it a really thourogh cleaning afterward.

Imperial Walker said:

Yah, this is a pretty common thing to do if you only have a single carboy and abottling bucket. (I think BeeGee does this, too.)

Primary it the bucket.
Rack to carboy for secondary.
Rack back to bucket for bottling.

I've done batches like this before, but I've got so many friggin carboys now, I don't think I'll have to do it again.

-walker

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Hello Walker,
So how do you do now? Cleaning carboy after primary fermentation seems like lots of work to me, right? I am still doing bucket->carboy->bucket.

Cal,

Just saw this thread...I am doing as Walker and Cal indicate: bucket->carboy->bucket. I plan to get a 6.5g carboy sometime soon, just don't feel like there's any urgency to it. Mostly I want to be able to 'see' primary fermentation more than anything else.

Cal, cleaning carboys isn't as fast and easy as buckets, but it's still relatively painless. I fill mine up with oxyclean and hot water and let them sit a few hours which gets most everything. A quick scrub with a carboy brush gets everything else. I then fill it with a couple teaspoons of bleach and water for storage and it's ready for action when I need it after a good rinse.

calman said:

Hello Walker,
So how do you do now? Cleaning carboy after primary fermentation seems like lots of work to me, right? I am still doing bucket->carboy->bucket.

Cal,

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I do primary in a 6.5 gallon carboy, secondary in a 5 gallon carboy, and bottle from the bucket.

Cleaning the primary is pretty easy, actually. I put some bleach water in the thing and let it sit overnight. Then, I just give it a quick scrubbing with a bottle-brush that has a bend in it so I can reach around the curve of the glass.

It takes only a few minutes of work to clean the things.

-walker

The reason that I have not use my bottling bucket as the primary is I am affraid that the spigot at the bottom will fail and leave me with a mess, and worse, no beer. I have previous threads about this concern and being a newbie, (3rd batch) i dont want to have any mishaps. Everybody keeps telling me that the bottling bucket will work out just fine as a primary, yet I still second guess myself. I think that I am going to stop worrying, relax and have a homebrew

I bottled my porter last night, and the spigot on my bucket has started to slowly leak. It wasn't a big deal for the time it took to bottle, but it DID constantly drip... drip... drip...

I hate those f*cking plastic sipgots! Anyone ever replace them with a decent metal one?

-walker

I just quickly rinse my primary out but straight away I begin another batch in it so there isn't any reason to give it a clean finish.