Bottling bucket as a secondary???

[Sarrsipius]

Newb brewer here. I have started out with a simple kit with a bucket primary and a bottling bucket. I'm wondering if it would work to use the bottling bucket as a secondary. Could I rack to the bottling bucket and leave it in there for a week or two and then just bottle from that?

 

[Yooper]

I wouldn't do that. The purpose of a "secondary" is really to use it as a clearing tank, or a "bright tank" in a brewery. Much of the suspended yeast and other particles will fall to the bottom as the beer clears. If you then bottle from that, you'll have to prime it and you'll resuspend all the gunk that you did a secondary to remove.

You can simply leave it in the primary for two weeks longer, then rack it from that fermenter to the bottling bucket. The results would probably be better.

 

[Sarrsipius]

Makes sense. Thanks

 

[rsmith179]

Agreed. Another thing you could do next time is swap your buckets. If you want to use a secondary, simply use your bottling bucket as the primary then transfer over to the primary for use as the secondary. That way you'll have your bottling bucket ready to go when you're ready to transfer out of the secondary to be bottled.

 

[R2-D2]

Agreed. Another thing you could do next time is swap your buckets. If you want to use a secondary, simply use your bottling bucket as the primary then transfer over to the primary for use as the secondary. That way you'll have your bottling bucket ready to go when you're ready to transfer out of the secondary to be bottled.

I did that by accident and it turned out fine. I just assumed the bucket I grabbed was the primary.

 

[D-Ring]

The only twist is to then use your primary as your bottling bucket. I did that with my last batch and everything worked out fine. I just swapped the spiggots around before I started.