Why not transfer to secondary during fermentation?

I'm currently working on my first batch and have been perusing many threads regarding secondary conditioning in carboys.

It seems that one of the disadvantages of transferring to secondary after the FG is reached is that one exposes the beer to oxygen. Why not rack to secondary while the primary fermentation is still occurring, and maintain CO2 production, thus protecting the beer?

My understanding is that racking the beer off the yeast cake can cause fermentation stalling and flavor problems since you are loosing the yeast cake which is partially responsible for cleaning up off flavors after attenuation is reached. The only beer I've brewed that was a dud was one that I trasferred to secondary while it was still fermenting. It is way too sweet, never reached FG and is having problems carbonating even after 4 weeks. I think I lost too much yeast during transfer so there was not sufficient yeast to finish the job.

Many of us don't use secondary for most beers anyway...But why would you want to transfer a beer off the yeast that is trying to ferment the beer before the beer is complete?

And relying on whatver yeast was slow to get starting and slow to flocculate, to finish fermenting your beer, especially if it's a higher grav one, to me that's like leaving the 3rd string JV of the local high school to finish playing the second half of the superbowl when the team is already down by 21 points.....

Folks who do that usually end up with stuck fermentations, or stressed out yeast causing off flavors....

Also the reason folks opt for long primaries over secondaries at all have to do with the fact that if left to their devices, yeast are very fastidious creatures....if you don't rack them right away, they WILL go back and clean up their own waste- all those byproducts of fermentation that lead to off flavors. So even if folks still want to rack to a secondary, I recommend they wait another week after fermentation has ceased to let the yeast do so.....

Even John Palmer has advocated not rushing the beer off the yeast for that very reason.

How To Brew said:

Leaving an ale beer in the primary fermentor for a total of 2-3 weeks (instead of just the one week most canned kits recommend), will provide time for the conditioning reactions and improve the beer. This extra time will also let more sediment settle out before bottling, resulting in a clearer beer and easier pouring. And, three weeks in the primary fermentor is usually not enough time for off-flavors to occur.

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That's why when I do rack I check gravity on day 12 and again on day 14 to confirm fermentation is complete, then rack.

I think a better question is...Why not just leave it in the primary? Are you wanting to move it to the secondary just to use the secondary?

Thanks for the reply. I'm not going to risk it, and will wait until FG is reached. This batch seems to be cranking and I'll let the yeast do their job. I am going to go to secondary, mainly because I poured my wort into the fermenter and added a lot of trub. I'll be using the stir and siphon technique next time.

This is my first solo brew (extract) blind-pig double IPA kit from morebeer.

This forum is great!

Lunchtime said:

I think a better question is...Why not just leave it in the primary? Are you wanting to move it to the secondary just to use the secondary?

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I poured in a lot of trub and thought I'd get a cleaner taste if I conditioned in secondary. The answers in this thread certainly convinced me to let the fermentation finish in primary, and I know that conditioning in secondary is purely optional.

There's actually no harm in leaving it on the trub...even if there is a lot of it.

"I don't often make use of a secondary, but when I do, I use Better-Bottles!"

Oxygen Free Racking





The primary has a ported closure with a 90˚ barb fitting installed. A length of 1/4" ID tubing from the barb fitting connects to the ID of the inlet of the high flow valve on the secondary. The secondary also has a ported closure, but this is where the dry trap air lock is installed. I put a short length of tubing on the barb of the airlock and insert it into a sandwich bag with sanitizer in it so that I can see the bubble rate.

The CO2 produced during the primary phase is used to purge the air out of the secondary. When it is time to rack, the 1/4" ID tubing simply gets removed from the valve on the secondary to the outlet barb of the air lock. This will allow for equalization during the transfer. Next, I connect a length of 1/2 ID tubing to the OD of both high flow valves. Now the secondary is placed on the floor while the primary is elevated, both valves are opened, and gravity does the rest. No introduction of O2 whatsoever. I even purge the air out of the tubing with CO2 from my tank before connecting it up.

@johnsma, that is a great solution! From reading a lot more threads about the subject, and taking all of your replies to heart, I am not going to move this batch to secondary.

I think for every experiment that it is good to focus on learning one major thing about the system. For my first batch, I think observing all of the aspects of primary fermentation should be the goal, and from many experienced brewers, it should also result in a nice beer. Prost.