house brew kit
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Just leave it in the primary for 3 weeks. Then another 3 in bottles before you chill and drink it.
If you don't have any pressing need to rack to the secondary just skip it. You will still have good beer without the secondary. This cuts out an opportunity for infection, too. The only reason I would suggest using a secondary for you first brew is in case you need room for the next.
If you do need to rack, keep it in the primary for 1 week, 2 weeks in the secondary, and 3 weeks in bottles.
Make sure to keep the bottles at room temp during those three weeks, chill it for a good 24 hours, and then give yourself a nice pour. Pour slowly and smoothly. Stop pouring when the bottle is horizontal. This will leave the yeast behind. Sit down and look at your prize. Look at the color, the opacity, the head, the color of the head, and stick your nose right down in it and smell it. My beer is best when I end up with it on my nose. Take a picture. You won't ever forget the first beer you made.
If you don't have any pressing need to rack to the secondary just skip it. You will still have good beer without the secondary. This cuts out an opportunity for infection, too. The only reason I would suggest using a secondary for you first brew is in case you need room for the next.
If you do need to rack, keep it in the primary for 1 week, 2 weeks in the secondary, and 3 weeks in bottles.
Make sure to keep the bottles at room temp during those three weeks, chill it for a good 24 hours, and then give yourself a nice pour. Pour slowly and smoothly. Stop pouring when the bottle is horizontal. This will leave the yeast behind. Sit down and look at your prize. Look at the color, the opacity, the head, the color of the head, and stick your nose right down in it and smell it. My beer is best when I end up with it on my nose. Take a picture. You won't ever forget the first beer you made.
There's been a shift in belief over the past few years, now most of us leave our beers in primary for a month rather than rack to a secondary, and find our beers are better for being on the yeast that time. And clearer.
Fermenting the beer is just a part of what the yeast do. If you leave the beer alone, they will go back and clean up the byproducts of fermentation that often lead to off flavors. That's why many brewers skip secondary and leave our beers alone in primary for a month. It leaves plenty of time for the yeast to ferment, clean up after themselves and then fall out, leveing our beers crystal clear, with a tight yeast cake.
We have multiple threads about this all over the place, like this one https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/ignore-instructions-do-not-bottle-after-5-10-days-78298/
If you leave the beer alone, they will go back and clean up the byproducts of fermentation that often lead to off flavors. That's why many brewers skip secondary and leave our beers alone in primary for a month. It leaves plenty of time for the yeast to ferment, clean up after themselves and then fall out, leveing our beers crystal clear, with a tight yeast cake.
This is the latest recommendation, it is the same one many of us have been giving for several years on here.
John Palmer said:
THIS is where the latest discussion and all your questions answered.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/secondary-not-john-palmer-jamil-zainasheff-weigh-176837/
We basically proved that old theory wrong on here 5 years ago, and now the rest fo the brewing community is catching up. Though a lot of old dogs don't tend to follow the latest news, and perpetuate the old stuff.
The autolysis from prolong yeast contact has fallen by the wayside, in fact yeast contact is now seen as a good thing.
All my beers sit a minimum of 1 month in the primary. And I recently bottled a beer that sat in primary for 5.5 months with no ill effects.....
You'll find that more and more recipes these days do not advocate moving to a secondary at all, but mention primary for a month, which is starting to reflect the shift in brewing culture that has occurred in the last 4 years, MOSTLY because of many of us on here, skipping secondary, opting for longer primaries, and writing about it. Recipes in BYO have begun stating that in their magazine. I remember the "scandal" it caused i the letters to the editor's section a month later, it was just like how it was here when we began discussing it, except a lot more civil than it was here. But after the Byo/Basic brewing experiment, they started reflecting it in their recipes.
If you really want to learn brewing, just do it. Books help, too. The Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian is the bible of homebrew. How to Brew by John Palmer is another great one. The nice thing about How to Brew is that the book is completely online.
Don't read anything into the link. I just get a kick out of lmgtfy. Poor Sarah has to put up with it all the time.
and read all of Revvy's threads.
Don't read anything into the link. I just get a kick out of lmgtfy. Poor Sarah has to put up with it all the time.
and read all of Revvy's threads.
