1st Brew Fermentation Question

[Zymguy]

So I have just completed my first brew this past weekend and have spent the last 5 days mesmerized by the fermentation process. I'm about 5 days in and can already tell it has slowed down significantly. I have been reading a lot of conflicting articles regarding secondary fermentation. Some say to stick in primary for 2 weeks then straight to bottle and others say to move to secondary after 1 week and then to bottle a week later.

Any suggestion or comments would be greatly appreciated.

thanks,

 

[Legin]

Truly depends on the beer. Most people only use secondaries for dry-hopping, fruit additions, adjuncts or incredibly long aging. People have shied away from secondaries because it is best on the primary cake for the yeast to remove their by-products, and secondly, you do not risk the possibility of contamination from racking. Leaving in the primary for 3-4 weeks and then bottling is a good beginning practice.

The counterargument is that racking to secondary, say, at 5 days, produces a cleaner beer. This is a practice used in most breweries. My flawed logic would be that you are removing it from the bulk of the yeast and thus not attributing as much of the yeast's flavors. Who knows if this is true? I believe this would be a bad practice for most ales because in most ales you want the yeast to attribute a certain amount of its flavor-- e.g Belgian, Scottish, English, and some German ales... Anyway, method depends on the beer.

 

[glenn514]

I normally rack to secondary. I brewed an Irish Red a week ago, and racked it to my secondary yesterday. If I would have let it sit and gone directly to the bottling bucket, I would have gotten A LOT of trub mixed in with the beer. I was amazed at the amount of stuff left at the bottom of the primary...and this was an extract with specialty grains, and I always use a bag for the grains and a bag for the hops!

Many on this board say that racking to secondary is a waste of time and energy. I understand, but this way works for me.

glenn514

 

[Zymguy]

Thanks for the info.

I picked an Amber Ale for my 1st brew and wasn't planned to dry hop. The recipe called for a move to a secondary 5 gal carboy after 7 days. It's sitting in a 6 1/2 gal plastic carboy atm. Because I don't have a 5 gal carboy and was hoping I could just leave it in the primary till targeted FG was reached.

 

[h22lude]

I keep in primary for 3 to 4 weeks and then bottle. Keeping it on the yeast cake helps clear the beer and get any of the bad stuff out of the beer. The yeast clear up a lot of junk after the primary fermentation. Taking it off that cake isn't bad but it might not clear up as much. I guess you could always rack to secondary and then us gelatin to clear up the beer. I personally like keeping it in primary unless dry hopping or adding fruit or oak.

 

[beergolf]

My first beer was a Brewers Best APA. The kit instructions said that after 5-7 days to rack to secondary for a week then bottle and let carb for a week. Luckily I read a bazillion posts here first and just left it in the primary for three weeks and in the bottle for three weeks. It was very good. It got even better after 5 weeks in the bottle.

The kit instructions are not very good for making good beer.

Learn that patience is the best thing when making beer, but is also the hardest thing.

 

[stratslinger]

Thanks for the info.

I picked an Amber Ale for my 1st brew and wasn't planned to dry hop. The recipe called for a move to a secondary 5 gal carboy after 7 days. It's sitting in a 6 1/2 gal plastic carboy atm. Because I don't have a 5 gal carboy and was hoping I could just leave it in the primary till targeted FG was reached.

One quick note here - if you haven't already picked this up from reading other posts, ignore any recipe instructions that set time frames for primary fermentation. Yeast works on its own time table, not your recipe's!

If you're going to rack to secondary (I'm another of those that does), make sure that you take samples, test them with your hydrometer, and get a consistent specific gravity reading across three days. That's the only way to really know when primary fermentation is complete. After that, it's kind of an ongoing, academic argument whether the conditioning phase works better on the original yeast cake or racked to a secondary vessel...