Second fermentation

[Jamie02173]

Im new to brewing and i have brewed an american ipa and a lager. I done my first transfers with a syphon and filled two corny kegs, and bottled the rest. The bottles look pretty awful! and probaly 10% yeast cloud on the bottom, although I discarded about 2 litres. Im not to conserned about the bottles, maybe ill drink 3/4 and discard the cloudy bit! Why waste it! I have corny kegs and that is my option after the first fermentation, but i am wondering about the second fermentation, as I am brewing lager its a slower proccess, so im wondering if I transfered the wort to a sencondary vessell after my first fermentation and ferment for a week further, then syphon to my keg? Would this be a better solution for a more clear lager?
And also maybe my bottles would turn out better, as its usually my remaining wort
as im making 23l and putting 18l in a keg

 

[palmtrees]

Couple of questions to help get you some answers. When you say second fermentation, do you mean putting the beer in a secondary vessel or are you referring to the fermentation for your second beer (a lager, it sounds like)? And with your bottles, am I right that you are seeing about 10% of the bottle taken up by a yeast cake? If so, can you outline your bottling process for us? Are you using a bottling bucket? Also how long are you leaving your beer in your fermentation vessel before bottling or kegging?

We can help more if you share that information. But from your post, it sounds like you may be bottling from an auto siphon in your fermentation vessel. If so, I'm not surprised you're getting so much yeast and trub in your bottles. You could try siphoning the first 18L to the keg, then siphoning the remaining beer into a bottling bucket, being careful to keep the siphon above the yeast cake. Any trub that gets into the bottling bucket will usually settle out pretty quickly. Then bottle using a counter-pressure bottling wand attached to the spigot in the bucket. The spigot will help you bottle only the clear beer, leaving any trub behind.

On secondary fermentation vessels, most homebrewers now agree that using a second vessel is unnecessary and potentially harmful to your beer. It introduces more oxygen and another chance to get an infection, and there are very few, if any, benefits. In fact, my beer has actually gotten a lot clearer since I stopped using secondary vessels. So I would recommend keeping the beer in the same fermentation vessel for the entire two to three weeks of fermenting and conditioning before kegging/bottling. It also sounds like your clarity issue is related to the kegging/bottling process and not to the fermentation vessel.

 

[mcmeador]

Specific to your lager, by definition you should be transferring to a secondary vessel of some sort and lagering it (keeping it at near-freezing temperatures for 4-6 weeks) once primary fermentation is complete. If you will be kegging the beer, you can do the lagering phase in the keg by putting it in your kegerator/keezer and letting it sit 4-6 weeks before you carbonate and begin serving.

As the poster above said, I would recommend using a separate bottling bucket and not bottling straight from the fermenting bucket.

 

[palmtrees]

Specific to your lager, by definition you should be transferring to a secondary vessel of some sort and lagering it

Somehow I forgot about lagering when talking about secondary vessels! My advice to not use a secondary is for ales that will only be in the fermentation vessel a few weeks. Secondaries are appropriate for things like lager and cider that sit around for much longer.