Secondary Fermentation

[tuffghost27]

There seems to be a huge variance in opinions on secondary fermentation and after reading several threads I'm still not sure what to do. Some people say skip secondary altogether others say the longer the better and some of the recipes I've looked at say 5-10 days. I do know there are many factors that would affect the decision of whether or not to do it or how long to leave it but maybe someone can help clear it up for me a little bit and correct me if I'm wrong.

So for a beer where you are not adding anything to the secondary it seems the only reason for using a secondary would be to get a clearer finished product. In this case I imagine you could either skip it altogether or the general 5-10 day rule would apply right?

Now how about a beer where you are adding something to the secondary? In that case does it just depend on what you're adding and what you want the end result to be?

For a specific example I've got a chocolate coffee stout in the secondary right now. It is an extract brew and just a pretty basic recipe. I added some cocoa powder in the last few minutes of the boil, then let it go in primary for 10 days, it started at 1.054 gravity and when transferred to secondary was at 1.014. I did add the coffee at that point and used 3 cups of cold brewed coffee. From there its been about 5 days and I was thinking about bottling it today because I want to get started on another batch. Would it be better to let it go longer or do you think bottling now would be just fine?

Sorry for such a long post but I'm really excited for this beer as it's the first batch I've made on my own without following a specific recipe and really want it to taste as good as possible.

Thanks!

 

[topend]

Opinions vary widely on this point. The most common advice probably is:

1. If you plan on a secondary of a couple weeks and have no flavor additions, then skip the secondary and just use a longer primary. One month on the yeast cake will do no harm, and many believe will result in better flavor.

2. If you plan on a secondary of a couple weeks because of flavor additions, you can either rack to secondary (more common) or add the flavors to the primary (less common, makes re-use of yeast more difficult).

3. If you have a high gravity beer that needs to age for months, then transfer to secondary.

 

[Calder]

Other reasons:

4) If you want to re-use yeast, it is best to harvest it sooner rather than later. The pressure of the wort (height of the fermenter) is damaging to the yeast.

5) If you fermented at a high temperature (Belgian), you want to get it off the yeast for any conditioning. High temps accelerate autolysis.

 

[headbanger]

I've found my brews really benefit from a longer primary (3-4 weeks)...

When I first started brewing with extracts I would primary for seven days then rack to secondary religiously. I am now brewing AG-BIAB and leaving everything in primary for 4 weeks. The only time I use secondary anymore is for dry-hopping and/or aging and my beers are definitely better for it.

 

[cyclonite]

I've found my brews really benefit from a longer primary (3-4 weeks)...

When I first started brewing with extracts I would primary for seven days then rack to secondary religiously. I am now brewing AG-BIAB and leaving everything in primary for 4 weeks. The only time I use secondary anymore is for dry-hopping and/or aging and my beers are definitely better for it.

+1.

I do the exact same now - BIAB, primary for 4 weeks on everything (with the exception of an occasional wheat, which I like young), only secondary for fruit, dry hopping (which I also have started doing in the primary or keg), or of I need a primary freed up

 

[scoundrel]

I've found my brews really benefit from a longer primary (3-4 weeks)...

When I first started brewing with extracts I would primary for seven days then rack to secondary religiously. I am now brewing AG-BIAB and leaving everything in primary for 4 weeks. The only time I use secondary anymore is for dry-hopping and/or aging and my beers are definitely better for it.

+1

I've also found that leaving it in primary longer compacts the trub and I end up with more beer. As for dry-hopping and aging... I do it in the keg.