Secondary temperature

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MattD

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So, this isn't a complicated question.. What's the best temp. for secondarying an ale? Mine went through primary at about 70F, I'm just wondering if it's possible to go TOO low (obviously you don't want to freeze it....). Is 55-60F too cold, or just lovely?
 
I'm certainly no expert but I think I can reply to this one (I'm sure i'll be corrected if i'm wrong :) ) I usually keep my secondary fermentation at the fermentation temperatures, after all, its still called "fermentation". The general purpose of a secondary is to: finish fermentation, allow clearing, remove the beer from the dead yeast. Conditioning (what I believe you are talking about), is the last step, at which you can do at serving temperatures. The "General" rule is 1 week in primary, 2 weeks in secondary and 3 weeks for conditioning. I condition my beer cold, this I believe allows it to clear even more.
 
Mike-H said:
I'm certainly no expert but I think I can reply to this one (I'm sure i'll be corrected if i'm wrong :) ) I usually keep my secondary fermentation at the fermentation temperatures, after all, its still called "fermentation". The general purpose of a secondary is to: finish fermentation, allow clearing, remove the beer from the dead yeast. Conditioning (what I believe you are talking about), is the last step, at which you can do at serving temperatures. The "General" rule is 1 week in primary, 2 weeks in secondary and 3 weeks for conditioning. I condition my beer cold, this I believe allows it to clear even more.
Click to expand...

Ok... I'll correct you... :)


"Secondary fermentation" is a misnomer. There is no second fermentation. This wrong terminology comes from the fact that we are using a secondary fermentor (another vessel) but ther fermentation is basically done when you go to the secondary. You are just letting the beer clear up. There might be a slight gravity change, but not much.

I do keep my beers at the same temp, though. No need to mess with it.

As for cold conditioning... that's fine if you are kegging. If you are priming and bottling, you need to do it at warmer temps to get the carbonation.

-walker
 
Would dropping the temp to help clear it out, and then bottling at higher temp for carbonation work? Or do you lose all your yeast by dropping the temperature, such that you'd have to repitch, and probably invalidate the whole point of what you were doing?
 
Thanks for clearing that up walker :)

Matt: I am not sure if "chilling" the secondary will give you that much better results than just leaving it at your ferm temp, especially if you're only talking 52 degrees. I would also guess you would get a quicker carbonation when you prime at room temp. If you really want to achieve the max clearness, you may have to bottle condition at room temp, then when its fully carb'd, store it at cool temps. I'm not sure if all of this is worth it, but I guess its up to you!
 
yup... you got it. let it carbonate at room temp (or een a little warmer) for a couple weeks (test it to see if it's ready). Then, crash the bottles to 40ish for a couple weeks and they will clear up nicely.
 
This is probably a stupid statement, but it just dawned on me. I always thought that the brew is still clearing up when you rack to bottles and you see that small amount of trub in the bottom of the bottles. But, it's because of the sugar you prime the beer with. It feeds some available yeast and they fall out to the bottom. DUH....... So with kegging, you don't have this problem. You are conditioning with CO2 instead of using sugar. So all that yeast stays in suspension with kegging.
 

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