leaving in primary for extended periods of time?

what are the disadvantages of leaving in the primary for long periods of time? if you want the beer to age and instead of using a secondary? besides not being able to use that primary for that period of time and waiting longer to drink your brew?

There is a new thread about this posted on here every day...


There are no disadvantages to doing it, and plenty of advantages, but ultimately it is a matter of brewer's preference...I and many of us get great results by leaving the beer alone for a month in primary. The only reason many of us secondary is to add something to it, like dry hopping...

My Beers improved n clarity and taste from that simple action...

Here's a bunch of threads on the topic searching using Long Primary..

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/search.php?searchid=2959734


Here's some more threads, many of which I posted the reasons why.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/search.php?searchid=2959766

first link comes up with no results

bkov said:

first link comes up with no results

Click to expand...

Search expires after about a half hour...I'm sure you can type "long primary" or "No secondary" into the search box yourself now. That's why I gave you the "search term: Long Primary" that I used with the initial results.

On an extreme, I left two extract kits in primaries for about 9 months once and had no side effects. The beer was rather good actually, which was a nice surprise. I seriously made them and forgot about it, found them in my brew cellar and was like, oh wow, beer.

Yeah I just dealt with the something similar. I was brewing with a friend, and forgot about the belgian tripel for... oh... 8 months. I was figuring the worst, but the sample tasted fine, albeit with a very strong bubblegum flavor. I threw that into a keg and stuck it in my closet for another 6 months to a year to see if that bubblegum flavor goes away. I'm not optimistic, but if it works I'll be thrilled. Turns out my friend let it hit 90 degrees.

I prefer longer primaries at this point. The flavor improves at a quicker pace I find, and if I can help the beer mature faster I'm a happy man.

Figure secondary as a clarifying tank if you *really* need it. I find I don't (especially with dark stouts).