Secondary fermentation

[bigmatt21]

Brewing virgin here, my question is, is secondary fermentation required? Also when bottling do I put the priming sugar in before I start the bottling process, or individually for each bottle? Thanks in advance.

 

[fartinmartin]

Some do secondary, I don't, and I have the feeling that most don't , unless they have a specific reason to. I don't think it's worth the hassle and the associated risks of getting something in it that shouldn't be there, and taking it of a yeast cake that maybe still active.

It's best to add the priming solution to the bottling bucket and blending it to the whole batch. Priming each bottle isn't as efficient, you can do it, but things can get messed up, some bottles could get mist, some could get double, then you are in bottle bomb territory.

 

[BrewLocal365]

Quick summary of the answers you are going to receive (and I agree; I am also in too much of a rush right now to dig up links):

1. The need to use a secondary is Homebrew myth unless it's going to be fermenting for a very long time (months and months) and generally this is if you are infusing with other ingredients (wood chips, coffee, fruit). Otherwise, for most beers, just leave it in the primary fermenter the whole time. The yeast will do a better clean-up job after primary fermentation starts and you have less chance to introduce sanitation problems or nasty critters. You won't regret leaving it in the primary. No one ever has. You could regret transferring it.
2. Do not add the sugar directly to each bottle. Add it to the whole batch in the bottling bucket. Boil the sugar with some water in a pot on the stove and add it to the bottling bucket first and transfer to the bottling bucket on top of the sugar-water in order to ensure it's distributed while also not oxidizing (which you could do if you stir it instead). For details and amounts refer to John Palmer. What you want to avoid it uneven distribtion of the sugar, which could lead to bottle bombs (carbo-explosions after bottling). The highest risk of this is trying to apportion to each bottle. The second highest is not getting your priming sugar solution evenly mixed into your beer before you bottle.

 

[doctormiah]

I think I am going to start a conspiracy theory that secondary fermenters were invented by homebrew suppliers to sell more carboys.

Also, don't forget to let your sugar solution cool a bit after boiling and before racking your beer onto it.

 

[dmashl]

I secondary my brews to clear my beer before bottling. Never had a problem with any nastys getting in my beer, use good sanitation techniques(starsan works great).
When I go to bottle, I put 4.5 to 5oz(depending on style) of dextrose in 2 cups of water, boil for 5 minutes, then prepare(sanitize) my bottles, then by that time my priming sugar/water should be cool enough, then rack my beer into the bottling bucket.

 

[Trox]

The only 2 reasons to use a secondary is 1) You are going to be bulk aging your beer for more than 3 months, or 2) you have to free up your primary. The 2 biggest reasons on why not to use a secondary is 1) it is another step in which an infection could be introduced into your beer, and 2) you have a much greater chance of oxidizing your beer.

Your beer will clear up just as well in your primary as it will in your secondary (as long as your not in the habit of shaking it up in the fermentors to reintroduce the trub into it). You can also dry hop into the primary just as well as you could into a secondary without any issues. In the end for most styles of beer there is no good reason to use a secondary and a couple of great reasons not to.

The reason why it used to be recommended to use a secondary is because of autolysis (yeast rupturing) causing off flavors. It was thought that when yeast died they would rupture creating off flavors. In breweries this is a real fear due to the amount of beer they brew at one time, the pressure off all the beer on top of the settled yeast would cause the cells to rupture so they do need a secondary. Homebrewers don't work with the amounts off beer that could cause the cells to rupture so we don't need to worry about autolysis happening.

For priming you should consult priming calculator to figure out how much sugar (this will change depending on what you plan on using as a priming sugar also) you should use to get to the proper carb level for each style and the amount of beer you are bottling. Generally the amount the kits give you is usually more than you need (since using Beersmith to plan my recipes I almost never you more than 4.25 oz). You will then take the recommended amount of priming sugar and boil it into 2 cups of water. Cool that water down to about room temp, and then add it to the bottom of your bottling bucket. Then when you rack the beer into the bottling bucket place your hose at the bottom of the bucket so that it is curving around the all a little bit; this way when you rack over the beer will gently swirl around the bucket mixing the sugar throughout without any splashing (so as not to oxidize your beer).

Some people like to wait until they rack the beer over before measuring out their priming sugar; the reason being is this way they'll know exactly how much beer they have so they can get their carb level spot on for what they like. If you go that route then what you'll do is after boiling and cooling the priming sugar you'll gently pour it on top of the beer and using a sanitized spoon slowly stir it into the beer to met it mixed in. You want to be careful not to splash or anything otherwise you run the risk of oxidizing your beer.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/ <---one online priming sugar calc. (I believe most of the recipe softwares also have a calc. I know Beersmith does not 100% sure of the rest)

 

[cdoebler]

If using a secondary, I've always heard to use a 5 gallon carboy. If you keep it in the primary the whole time, you have a lot of space above the beer, so why couldn't you use a 6 gallon? Confused on the reasoning.

 

[peterj]

If using a secondary, I've always heard to use a 5 gallon carboy. If you keep it in the primary the whole time, you have a lot of space above the beer, so why couldn't you use a 6 gallon? Confused on the reasoning.

During fermentation the CO2 produced purges all of the oxygen out of the headspace. But when you transfer and there is headspace in the secondary it is largely air not CO2. This will cause the beer to get oxidized resulting in cardboard and sherry flavors.

EDIT: So the 5 gallon carboy should minimize headspace so the beer will be exposed to less oxygen when aging.

 

[cdoebler]

During fermentation the CO2 produced purges all of the oxygen out of the headspace. But when you transfer and there is headspace in the secondary it is largely air not CO2. This will cause the beer to get oxidized resulting in cardboard and sherry flavors.

EDIT: So the 5 gallon carboy should minimize headspace so the beer will be exposed to less oxygen when aging.

Thank you, makes total sense!

 

[DaveHunter5]

During fermentation the CO2 produced purges all of the oxygen out of the headspace. But when you transfer and there is headspace in the secondary it is largely air not CO2. This will cause the beer to get oxidized resulting in cardboard and sherry flavors.

EDIT: So the 5 gallon carboy should minimize headspace so the beer will be exposed to less oxygen when aging.

Unless a person purges their 6 gallon carboy with CO2 before transferring.

 

[peterj]

Unless a person purges their 6 gallon carboy with CO2 before transferring.

True, you just have to make sure you do a good job, use a lot of CO2, and close it up right afterwards.

 

[bigmatt21]

So, I really don't need this carboy? Can it be used for primary? I guess not huh, since light can jack it up?

 

[BrewLocal365]

So, I really don't need this carboy? Can it be used for primary? I guess not huh, since light can jack it up?

Absolutely it can be; just throw an old towel or two around / over it, or keep it in the dark! Also, why would this be an issue as a primary fermenter but not as a secondary? Light is an issue throughout.

I'm carboy over bucket any day, but I think I'm in the minority around here. There's just something old-school and alchemist-like when you ferment in glass that I don't feel with a plastic bucket. Just be extremely careful when handling a glass carboy.

 

[Trox]

An old t-shirt also works great for covering up the carboy to keep the light out.

 

[davefleck]

The only 2 reasons to use a secondary is 1) You are going to be bulk aging your beer for more than 3 months, or 2) you have to free up your primary. The 2 biggest reasons on why not to use a secondary is 1) it is another step in which an infection could be introduced into your beer, and 2) you have a much greater chance of oxidizing your beer.

Your beer will clear up just as well in your primary as it will in your secondary (as long as your not in the habit of shaking it up in the fermentors to reintroduce the trub into it). You can also dry hop into the primary just as well as you could into a secondary without any issues. In the end for most styles of beer there is no good reason to use a secondary and a couple of great reasons not to.

The reason why it used to be recommended to use a secondary is because of autolysis (yeast rupturing) causing off flavors. It was thought that when yeast died they would rupture creating off flavors. In breweries this is a real fear due to the amount of beer they brew at one time, the pressure off all the beer on top of the settled yeast would cause the cells to rupture so they do need a secondary. Homebrewers don't work with the amounts off beer that could cause the cells to rupture so we don't need to worry about autolysis happening.

For priming you should consult priming calculator to figure out how much sugar (this will change depending on what you plan on using as a priming sugar also) you should use to get to the proper carb level for each style and the amount of beer you are bottling. Generally the amount the kits give you is usually more than you need (since using Beersmith to plan my recipes I almost never you more than 4.25 oz). You will then take the recommended amount of priming sugar and boil it into 2 cups of water. Cool that water down to about room temp, and then add it to the bottom of your bottling bucket. Then when you rack the beer into the bottling bucket place your hose at the bottom of the bucket so that it is curving around the all a little bit; this way when you rack over the beer will gently swirl around the bucket mixing the sugar throughout without any splashing (so as not to oxidize your beer).

Some people like to wait until they rack the beer over before measuring out their priming sugar; the reason being is this way they'll know exactly how much beer they have so they can get their carb level spot on for what they like. If you go that route then what you'll do is after boiling and cooling the priming sugar you'll gently pour it on top of the beer and using a sanitized spoon slowly stir it into the beer to met it mixed in. You want to be careful not to splash or anything otherwise you run the risk of oxidizing your beer.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/ <---one online priming sugar calc. (I believe most of the recipe softwares also have a calc. I know Beersmith does not 100% sure of the rest)

As long as your post is I'm surprised you couldn't come up with another reason. What I'd you want to use that yeast cake to eat up another batch? Especially a high OG batch. It's like a 5 gal starter.
I almost always do this when making big beers as it can be challenging to make a large enough starter. Pretty much the only reason I use a secondary

 

[E_Marquez]

(I believe most of the recipe softwares also have a calc. I know Beersmith does not 100% sure of the rest)

Beersmith2 has CALC BUILT IN.

 

[peterj]

As long as your post is I'm surprised you couldn't come up with another reason. What I'd you want to use that yeast cake to eat up another batch? Especially a high OG batch. It's like a 5 gal starter.
I almost always do this when making big beers as it can be challenging to make a large enough starter. Pretty much the only reason I use a secondary

A 5 gallon starter would always be a massive overpitch for another 5 gallon batch. Overpitching can be detrimental to your beer. I would never recommend racking onto an entire yeast cake. But harvesting the correct amount of yeast from a yeast cake is a good idea. I use the Mr. Malty calculator to estimate things like this: http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html.

 

[BigFloyd]

A 5 gallon starter would always be a massive overpitch for another 5 gallon batch. Overpitching can be detrimental to your beer. I would never recommend racking onto an entire yeast cake. But harvesting the correct amount of yeast from a yeast cake is a good idea. I use the Mr. Malty calculator to estimate things like this: http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html.

"Almost always" would be more accurate.

If you're going to do a really big beer (over 1.100) or a high gravity lager (pitch rate around 2.0), it's a pretty useful technique to first make a 5g session beer (1.035-1.045) using the same yeast, rack it off to bottle/keg and pitch the big wort onto that cake. It's a nice alternative to making the huge (and often multi-step) starter such a beer would need and then having to crash/decant/dump a large amount of fermented starter wort since you don't want that affecting your beer.

 

[Trox]

As long as your post is I'm surprised you couldn't come up with another reason. What I'd you want to use that yeast cake to eat up another batch? Especially a high OG batch. It's like a 5 gal starter.
I almost always do this when making big beers as it can be challenging to make a large enough starter. Pretty much the only reason I use a secondary

That could fall under freeing up your primary since you don't have to transfer over for the yeast cake until the beer is ready to bottle, unless you need to free up your primary for the new batch. The yeast cake you generally want to use for a big beer is that from a smaller beer which is usually done in about 3-4 weeks, and you should leave the beer in the primary that long anyways so that the yeast have a chance to finish cleaning up after themselves.

 

[RonPopeil]

alright matt. as you can see a lot of people take this stuff seriously. just to give you a bit of an information sifter:

reasons to secondary:

1. I want my beer to be super clear
2. I want to add fruit or spices to my beer
3. I prefer the flavor of using a secondary and/or dry hopping without yeast present.
4. I want to age my beer on wood chips or just let it mellow for an extended period of time (many months up, to a year)
5. I like cleaning more stuff than I really need to.

reasons to not secondary:

1. I'm brewing a big beer and want to leave it on the yeast for as long as possible to ensure good fermentation. In this scenario your bulk aging in your primary fermenter for a few weeks as a side effect of fermenting cautiously.
2. I'm not adding any additives to my beer (fruits, flavorings)
3. Dry hopping in primary doesn't effect my opinion on the flavor of my beer.
4. I'm using a fast fermenting yeast that will attenuate well alleviating most benefits a secondary will provide.

do you HAVE to do it? no. you never actually HAVE to do anything. some people prefer the flavor and in a lot of cases it's beneficial. in some cases it is necessary for best results.

there's no hard/fast rules.

 

[peterj]

"Almost always" would be more accurate.

If you're going to do a really big beer (over 1.100) or a high gravity lager (pitch rate around 2.0), it's a pretty useful technique to first make a 5g session beer (1.035-1.045) using the same yeast, rack it off to bottle/keg and pitch the big wort onto that cake. It's a nice alternative to making the huge (and often multi-step) starter such a beer would need and then having to crash/decant/dump a large amount of fermented starter wort since you don't want that affecting your beer.

I've heard people giving this advice before, but I would personally never do this myself. Looking at the numbers in the Mr. Malty calculator (which I know are just an estimation) 5 gallons of a 1.100 gravity beer needs a 0.71 gallon starter. So using a 5 gallon starter is a little over 7 times the amount of yeast you actually need. I think it would be just as easy to scoop out the correct amount of slurry, discard the rest and pitch the right amount of yeast.

I guess it would be fine for a big lager though. That's a good point. It would still be more than twice the yeast you would actually need for a 1.100 gravity lager, but that's a reasonable overpitch.

 

[BigFloyd]

I've heard people giving this advice before, but I would personally never do this myself. Looking at the numbers in the Mr. Malty calculator (which I know are just an estimation) 5 gallons of a 1.100 gravity beer needs a 0.71 gallon starter. So using a 5 gallon starter is a little over 7 times the amount of yeast you actually need. I think it would be just as easy to scoop out the correct amount of slurry, discard the rest and pitch the right amount of yeast.

Were that it were that simple. If you use a calculator (like Braukaiser and Chris White's at Brewers Friend) that takes into account both inoculation rate and max growth rate in a "simple" starter (which is what the first beer is - no agitation), the numbers turn out much closer.

590 billion cells is what you really want for 5.25 gallons of a 1.100 ale wort (at 1.25 "big ale" pitch rate). 100 billion cells pitched into a 5.25 gallon batch of 1.040 gives an ending cell count of 700 billion cells. I'd not worry about that slight 110b cell (18.6%) over-pitch.

I guess it would be fine for a big lager though. That's a good point. It would still be more than twice the yeast you would actually need for a 1.100 gravity lager, but that's a reasonable over-pitch.

If we use for an example a lager of 1.075 gravity (needing 723b cells at a 2.0 pitch rate) and a first "starter" lager of 1.040 into which a proper pitch of 300b cells is made. The fresh cake would provide 1085b cells. Something of over-pitch to be sure, but one that is still well within reason.

 

[te-wa]

think of your bottles or your keg as a secondary. like above, it is simply a consumption of time to rack to secondary as a bright tank. if adding adjuncts or aging for months, yes. rack it.

many if not most styles of beer will be fine w/ a 1 month primary, then packaging.
i used to secondary just because the kit instructed me to do so. once i had refined my brewing techniques and became a better brewer (so i say) through practice, experience and mistake-making, i gave up on secondary on most regular, sub 8% beers.
that is to say, when i do rack over to 2ndary carboy, i purge with a CO2 bath.

i'm finally in the "secondary is a non-essential and redundant method" club.

 

[peterj]

Were that it were that simple. If you use a calculator (like Braukaiser and Chris White's at Brewers Friend) that takes into account both inoculation rate and max growth rate in a "simple" starter (which is what the first beer is - no agitation), the numbers turn out much closer.

590 billion cells is what you really want for 5.25 gallons of a 1.100 ale wort (at 1.25 "big ale" pitch rate). 100 billion cells pitched into a 5.25 gallon batch of 1.040 gives an ending cell count of 700 billion cells. I'd not worry about that slight 110b cell (18.6%) over-pitch.

Ahh, ok I see where I went wrong. I was just multiplying the size of the starter and assuming a linear relationship to yeast growth rate. Thanks for setting me straight! You learn something new every day!