Another secondary fermentation question

[Railroad]

Hello all.

As a new (this very minute) member to the forums, I apologize if this question has been touched upon elsewhere (I did a quick search and didn't find exactly what I was looking for, but definitely some other helpful advice). This is only my third batch of homebrew, and the other 2 were about 5 years ago, so I'm still quite the beginner.

I'm making a porter/stout and opting for secondary fermentation, which worked very well for my pale ale back in the day. Without boring you to death, my question/concern is this: I want to avoid a lot of oxygen in the secondary fermenter and have heard that the additional CO2 produced from any additional fermentation will help to push unwanted oxygen out of the carboy. If this is true, does this mean that it's on the safer side to transfer from primary to secondary earlier as opposed to later, so that you still have fermentation left to occur? Or do you want to pretty much make sure that the yeast are done before you let it sit in secondary? Or am I over-thinking this whole thing?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[malkore]

You are over thinking it. If you avoid splashing the beer when racking, oxidation isn't a significant risk.
NO fermentation should occur in secondary...racking later is better than sooner as you could end up getting a stuck or stalled fermentation by racking prematurely.

even post fermentation, the beer will be gassing out CO2 into the secondary. Just try to minimize splashing/aeration of the finished beer, and avoid having a lot of wide open headspace. Having said that, I've done a 4 gallon secondary in a 5 gallon carboy with zero oxidation flavor in the finished beer. I'm also REALLY careful when I rack.

 

[Railroad]

Great. Good to know. Yes, actually, the one batch I did with secondary was from a 6 gallon to a 6 gallon (for 5 gallons of beer). The beer came out very well, but this time around I'm going from a 6 to a 5 gallon carboy just to be safe.

When you say you are "really careful" when you rack, what do you mean exactly? Forgive my ignorance. When I siphoned last time, I put the tube just above the gunk in the bottom of the primary and was careful not get any air in the tube. However, I was dumping it into a funnel (with a filter), and so obviously it was exposed to air as it entered the secondary.

Thanks again!

 

[michael.berta]

Unless you need the primary right away for another brew you might want to consider skipping the secondary "fermentation" as it is not required for this style.

 

[PT Ray]

Actually your logic has some merit. You're not the first to think of using the last bit of fermentation to help scrub some oxygen that may have been introduced during a transfer or to dry hop.

 

[ChshreCat]

When you say you are "really careful" when you rack, what do you mean exactly? Forgive my ignorance. When I siphoned last time, I put the tube just above the gunk in the bottom of the primary and was careful not get any air in the tube. However, I was dumping it into a funnel (with a filter), and so obviously it was exposed to air as it entered the secondary.

Thanks again!

Yeah, that funnel/filter isn't really a good idea. That'll aerate the beer really well as you go. What he means about being careful is to get the hose all the way to the bottom of your secondary vessel, so as you rack into it it doesn't splash around. Plus, once the level gets above the end of the hose, the new beer isn't even contacting air until it circulates to the top. The funnel/filter things are meant for when you're pouring your cooled wort from the kettle into the primary. It catches break material and hops and whatnot if you don't want them in your fermenter.

Freshly fermented beer holds a lot of CO2 and when you transfer a good amount of it gets released, so your secondary should create a blanket of CO2 on it's own without trying to time the end of your ferment to occur after racking. Better to let fermentation complete in the primary, give the yeast a little time to clean up byproducts and then transfer to secondary (if at all).

 

[Railroad]

Thanks Chshre,

That part seemed sketchy to me, but I opted to not filter when adding to the primary for some reason. I guess I felt like I wanted all the flavor I could get (!) and figured that transferring to secondary would be my opportunity to remove the sediment.

Is there a better way to transfer to secondary and filter (aside from just being really careful about not putting the bottom of the tube in the sediment at the bottom of the primary)??? And of course, causing less mixing with oxygen as the transfer occurs?

Thank you all so much for the help! I'm just about ready to transfer to secondary and now I've opened up a can of worms for myself.

 

[jeffmeh]

As many have stated from experience, you can do a 3-4 week primary and skip secondary if you wish. If you do want to secondary, wait until primary fermentation is finished and most of the yeast has dropped to the bottom. Then use your siphon to rack to secondary, without disturbing the yeast cake and trub. Again, have the output of the siphon on the bottom of the secondary, to minimize splashing, air contact, and potential oxidation.

 

[Revvy]

When you say you are "really careful" when you rack, what do you mean exactly? Forgive my ignorance. When I siphoned last time, I put the tube just above the gunk in the bottom of the primary and was careful not get any air in the tube. However, I was dumping it into a funnel (with a filter), and so obviously it was exposed to air as it entered the secondary.

Thanks again!

it takes a lot more oxygen exposure of our beer to cause any damage, than what we do in the normal course of our brewing AND in most of the boneheaded mistakes we make(including using our autosiphon like a hand pump if it gets stuck...in a basic brewing podcast years ago, one of the big wigs, John Palmer, or Chris Colby (the editor of BYO) said that the amount of oxygen to actually damage our beer, is actually far in excess of what we do in the normal course of brewing and even most of our accidents. And requires about the amount of oxygen that we could pump in by emptying one of our red oxygen bottles with an airstone into our bottling bucket....not the normal amount of motion we make if we are careful brewers.

Also the effects of oxydation are long term they affect the storage of beers...Unless you pumped an oxygen bottle into your finished beer, you will have consumed your two cases of beer long before any signs of oxydation would show up.


Before you get all "first time parent" on your beer and start to panic about every little thing, read this thread and see, that despite what bonehead things that we might do, it still come out as beer.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/wh...where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/

 

[Railroad]

Hehe, thanks guys. I appreciate the quick responses and eagerness to help. I'll definitely do more research before my next rookie questions arise. I'm just both (a) a perfectionist, and (b) eager to get brewing (read: drinking)!

This seems to be a great community. I can see myself dumping $25/year for sure.

Cheers!

 

[ChshreCat]

figured that transferring to secondary would be my opportunity to remove the sediment.

It is! You just let it sit for a few weeks. All that sediment will settle to the bottom of the carboy and you can rack off the top of it. I do a three week primary and my beer is pretty much clear at that point and all I do when transferring to primary is pour it through a kitchen strainer to get the big stuff out like hop flowers if I use whole hops.

I still do a short secondary because I like having a little extra time for the beer to clear and (the main reason) because I'm a klutz with the autosiphon and usually stir the yeast cake up at least a little bit. The week in secondary lets that settle back out before I rack to my bottling bucket.

Another reason I still secondary is because I primary in an opaque bucket. I know intellectually that after 3 weeks in primary that my beer is clear, but it's not until I get it in my clear secondary that I can actually SEE it and verify that it's good to go.

Filtering isn't something you really want to do (real filtering, with a special filter setup) unless you're kegging your beer and force carbonating it. Proper filtering will strip much of the yeast out (and some of the flavor, some claim).

Running your beer through cheese cloth or a coffee filter or something like that after fermentation will just oxidize it and leave you with wet cardboard tasting beer.

Let time and gravity do the work for ya. Not specific gravity... I mean the regular earth-sucking type.