Primary fermenting only
- Thread starter owentp
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I typically do most everything in primary, including dry hop, but will bulk age beers in a smaller carboy. Also, if I've primaried an IPA or IIPA in a carboy, I'll move it to a buckey for dry hop, just for logistical reasons.
So that bed of yeast and trub at the bottom doesn't affect overall flavor or efficiency? I would much rather just use primary fermenters just for ease! How about fruit or extracts? Would you use secondary on those?
Transferring every beer to the secondary is becoming an outdated practice. It was important decades ago when the only yeast available to homebrewers were unhealthy yeast that would easily die and spew their guts into the beer. Now a days the yeast can be perfectly healthy sitting on the bottom of the primary for at least a month. You're much better served to just let that large yeast cake clean up the beer quicker until you want to condition in your serving vessel. The secondary will only make infection and oxidation risks. The only real reason for using a secondary that i can see is if you want to add things later on in the beer like hops and fruits but you still want to reuse yeast from the primary.
It does affect the flavor, just not in a really bad way as people thought for years. In fact many people prefer the flavor of beers that have seen extended yeast cake contact. Many others prefer the flavors of beers aged off of the yeast cake. Both ways make good beer, it just comes down to personal preference
The yeast in suspension are the ones doing the "work". The yeast cake has very little if any affect on the final gravity (other than what they did while still in suspension).
I don't think this is true. I believe the dry yeast I was using 25 years ago is just as good as what is available now. We just have a better selection. Smack packs have been around for quite a few years too (at least 20). Very healthy yeast was available back then. Yes there might have been more expired yeast sold back then, but that just meant you underpitched your wort, and you got the same result as you get if you underpitched your yeast today.
What has changed is that the homebrewer has gotten much better at handling the yeast - particularly with respect to temperature and pitching rates
the rap I've heard is that they usually sold poorly handled, old yeast packs to the average homebrewer back then to the point where you were just dumping a significant fraction of autolyzed yeast in your beer so it was important to get it out of the primary in a week.
I wouldnt know though. ive been brewing all of 5 years.
Perhaps if you were buying the stuff that came with the can of extract. I never did that. I always bought a separate packet. They have been packaging dry yeast for a long time and the technology was pretty well developed back then.
Even if a bunch of the yeast were dead, you are still adding, what, perhaps a tsp of dead yeast? Compare that to the amount of yeast present when the beer is done fermenting and it is a pretty small amount and not likely to impact the flavor much if at all. Even if the yeast you added was illin', once it divides, the daughters cells are perfectly healthy. The real danger is underpitching
punkerdru
Well-Known Member
chwayock said:
I see what you did there...
hector
Well-Known Member
Oh God ! again the Primary-Secondary discussion !!!
Anyway , I used to let the Beer sit in the Primary for 3-4 Weeks and then bottled it .
But , it always ended up with a very sour and undrinkable Beer . Although , I always take care of everything such as
sanitizing , pitching rate , temperature and so on .
Someone told me to rack the Beer after 1 week and transfer it into the Secondary and let it sit there for 2 Weeks and then to bottle .
I did so by my previous Extract-batch and it was the first drinkable Beer I've ever made .
I told my story to mention that it also depends on the yeast strain and the ingredients .
My Recipe was very simple . I used light DME , Crystal Malt , bittering Hops and bottled spring water . I let "Safale S-04" do the job for me .
Hector
Anyway , I used to let the Beer sit in the Primary for 3-4 Weeks and then bottled it .
But , it always ended up with a very sour and undrinkable Beer . Although , I always take care of everything such as
sanitizing , pitching rate , temperature and so on .
Someone told me to rack the Beer after 1 week and transfer it into the Secondary and let it sit there for 2 Weeks and then to bottle .
I did so by my previous Extract-batch and it was the first drinkable Beer I've ever made .
I told my story to mention that it also depends on the yeast strain and the ingredients .
My Recipe was very simple . I used light DME , Crystal Malt , bittering Hops and bottled spring water . I let "Safale S-04" do the job for me .
Hector
punkerdru
Well-Known Member
Personally I haven't had any issues with leaving it in primary for up to a month. One thing you might want to think about though is racking to secondaries let's you get sort of a production line going.
gallowjc
Active Member
Why not just buy a second primary? especially if using a bucket for a primary, way cheaper.
