Tripel - Secondary or bottle from Primary?

I have a pretty strong Belgian Tripel nearing the point where I'll have to take action. I'm torn by what to do at the moment, so help a brother out. It's approaching week 4 in the primary, so should I just bottle it or transfer to secondary to let it age in bulk before bottling?

I can't see letting it sit in a secondary really achieving anything to be honest, but there's a lot of conflicting advice out there. Some advocate a long secondary of a couple of months minimum, whereas others just say to let it age in the bottle. If I do secondary, is it worth whacking 100g of DME in there to ensure that it purges the O2 while it's conditioning?

Give me some wise words.

James

 

If your not going to add anything to the brew in secondary and you don't think it will do much for you just bottle. I'm sure many people will disagree but you could go either way. Whatever you fee like dude. It will still taste good.


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is kegging a possibility in your near future? not being facetious here, but a keg becomes a secondary and reduces the secondary-bottle bucket-bottle contamination and oxidation as you are aware, im sure.

i plan to do a simple smash (pilsner+saaz) tripel next weekend. this way i can rack from primary to my corny and rest at room temp for a few months. purging the corny with co2 is my option.

your proposed method may stir up suspended co2 during the secondary transfer, enough to purge itself?

thoughts?

 

Sounds good to me. I've used my keg as a primary bit not a secondary. Co1 purge is really nice in the keg as well as 0 light exposure.


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I would love to have a corny set-up, but it's not in my immediate future. I reckon I'll give it till the 4 week mark and then cold crash, bottle and see what happens. I did a 2 week primary, 2 week secondary with a Dubbel I did before xmas, but seeing how active this one is at nearly four weeks I'm sure that did it a disservice.

Thanks for the input gang, I'll keep it simple and let it do it's thing in the bottle.

James

 

I gave my last tripel a few months in secondary before bottling. It turned out great. I pretty much secondary all my big belgian beers now.

 

i did a quadruppel (is that even a real term?) and it took many weeks in bottle just to carbonate. in my inexperience, i tried to brew a 10% abv with one pack of t-58.
it wasnt really drinkable until after 3 months in a bottle. i gave most of them away.

i hate to use a new corny to age a big beer until likely first of May, when i could prolly push 2 or 3 good beers in that keg until then. anyway, that's the patience i'll have to force upon myself.

the end result/product will be worth the wait!

 

Considering how long a trippel takes to age, I'm not sure that I'd want to tie up one of my kegs that long. Better to let that one mature in the bottles 8-9 months.

FYI- your dubbel really isn't there yet either. I'd start drinking that one in mid-March.

 

Why do you only have two choices, to secondary or to bottle since you are approaching week 4? Why don't you leave that trippel right where it is in the primary and bulk age it there for another 2 to 4 weeks?

 

Piggyback question: if I were to bulk age a big beer in secondary for four months, is that that much less time it needs to mature in the bottle?

Also, how do Better Bottles do as secondary vessels?

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Yeah it's definitely improving with time, I have a fair amount that I want to age for as many months as I can stomach. I'll leave this one in primary for as long as I dare and then bottle direct from there

James

 

I heard four weeks was approaching the maximum time it was advisable to leave the beer on top of the yeast cake - if you think it'd benefit from longer then I'm in no rush so could give it a couple of extra weeks.

Whats the upper limit for leaving it on the yeast?

James

 

Most of the things people used to use a secondary for are now accomplished with a longer primary (like your four weeks). The original purpose of secondary was avoiding autolysis. If your yeast has cleaned up after itself, you're done.

 

4 weeks is usually cited. I'd say that's the "safe" figure but with a higher alcohol beer possibly contributing to autolysis I'd play it safe.

It will age just as well (and more "safely") in the bottle, anyway.

 

If you secondary for another 4 months you might have to re-pitch yeast to make sure it carbonates in the bottle. If you bottle now you can start tasting in a few months.

 

I secondary all of my 1.060+ Belgians for a month or two. The cooler, the better. 50-55 F. As for needing to re-yeast with a 1 month primary and 1-2 month secondary, I say Bah! Never needed to.

I'm sure it'll turn out well if you go straight to bottling also.