Extract Brewing Secondary Fermentation.

[deewilliam17]

I'm brewing a True Brew pilsner extract kit, I'm not sure if I should rack to a secondary or when. The kit's instructions don't say anything about racking, but I've heard it's typically a good idea to do so. The kit just says to wait a week or until the air lock stops bubbling, add the priming sugar and bottle. Should I do a secondary or follow these instructions?
The kit included 3.3 lbs LME
2 lbs DME
1 oz cascade hop pellets
1 oz cascade hop leafs

 

[FortMillBrew]

IMHO: Secondaries are not necessary for a majority of brewing situations. Are you dry hopping? Will you 'lager' your pilsner? If yes, then transfer. If you are just going to let fermentation complete at room temperature then there is no need to transfer to a secondary. Let it sit for two or better 3 weeks in the primary, take a gravity reading and proceed to bottle. Easy breezy.

RDWHAHB

 

[Upthewazzu]

I do a secondary on all my beers, just a way to clear more crud. Primary fermentation is done when it's done, however, two weeks is a pretty good rule of thumb, IMO. If you don't trust that rule, then use a hydrometer to measure your gravity and when it is the same three days apart, you're good to go.

 

[deewilliam17]

If I do rack it and leave it in the secondary for a few weeks, will it still carbonate when I add priming sugar and bottle it?

 

[Upthewazzu]

If I do rack it and leave it in the secondary for a few weeks, will it still carbonate when I add priming sugar and bottle it?

Yes, it will have more than enough yeast in suspension to carbonate properly.

 

[BigFloyd]

Before adding priming sugar and bottling, you're going to certainly want to transfer the beer (but not the yeast layer) to a bottling bucket that has a spigot with a bottling wand attached (using a very short piece of 3/8" tubing).

Secondary? IMO, not called for unless you are going to add fruit or long-term age/lager. The extraneous transfer does increase the risk of oxidation as will the presence of any air space in the secondary vessel.

 

[brewprint]

I brewed the same kit a week ago. I let it sit in the primary for about 4 or 5 days and put it in the secondary. After I put it into the secondary I literally watched the haze fall. I plan to bottle possibly this weekend but I also have an ipa that I need to bottle.

I'd rather use secondaries to let the beer rest and remove the cloud. This may all be overkill but I also have two secondaries. So if I transfer I can get another batch going.

I've only done 6 batches so far so I'm not an expert.

 

[GHBWNY]

+ BigFloyd

If your main purpose in racking to a secondary is to end up with less crud and a clearer beer in your glass, have you tried gelatin? When fermentation is done, carefully put the whole fermentation vessel in the fridge for 24 hrs (if you have room). Then add gelatin (as per directions) and leave in the fridge (cold crash) for a few more days. If you rack carefully from the fermentation vessel to bottling/kegging, you should have no problem with crud and your beer should be super-clear.

 

[fuelish]

For most beers, secondary is unnnecessary, more work, and why bother when you can have 2 or more carboys fermenting instead of having to have an empty on hand as "needed"...Sure, it's a good thing to secondary maybe if you're making a "big big" beer, or wine, or mead, but....nah ....waste of time and resources when talking normal beers

 

[KeninMN]

I'm space limited, so I can't have a bunch carboys sitting around. I have one 6.5 gallon primary and two 5 gallon secondaries (one came with the kit I bought and one I got for free, otherwise I wouldn't have it.) As such, I rack every beer to secondary to free up my primary for my next batch. The secondary also helps because I don't have room for an extra refrigerator to put carboys and kegs into; therefore, I have to bottle, and if I want cleaner beer my best option, in my opinion, is secondary + time, as I've found that one of the easiest things to do to make better beer is to give it the proper amount of time. For me racking to secondary means my brews get a minimum of six weeks start-to-finish before I can start drinking them. (Two in Primary, two in secondary and two for bottle conditioning.) My experience, given my particular situation, is that anything less than this is less than ideal. (I sample frequently and take detailed notes, so this is what the data shows me.) That said, I'm not making any judgement calls; this is what works well for me. You will, no doubt, find out what works well for you. That's the science part of brewing that I love so much. Brew on!

 

[peterj]

I let it sit in the primary for about 4 or 5 days and put it in the secondary. After I put it into the secondary I literally watched the haze fall.

I'd rather use secondaries to let the beer rest and remove the cloud.

4 or 5 days in the primary is not long enough. Also, you could watch the haze fall in the primary just as much as in the secondary. The yeast is going to settle out at the exact same rate whether you move it to a secondary or leave it in the primary. In my opinion it will actually settle out faster if left in the primary because you're not mixing it all up again by transferring it unnecessarily. There's nothing magical about a secondary that increases the force of gravity on the settling yeast.

 

[bleme]

I don't secondary. After 3 weeks I put my fermentor in a rope tub with a bunch of ice and cover with 2 sleeping bags. The next day, the beer is as clear as it is going to get and the trub is like peanut butter so I can siphon every drop to the bottling bucket.

I have access to free ice though.

 

[brewprint]

4 or 5 days in the primary is not long enough. Also, you could watch the haze fall in the primary just as much as in the secondary. The yeast is going to settle out at the exact same rate whether you move it to a secondary or leave it in the primary. In my opinion it will actually settle out faster if left in the primary because you're not mixing it all up again by transferring it unnecessarily. There's nothing magical about a secondary that increases the force of gravity on the settling yeast.

Why isn't that long enough? I still see it fermenting in the secondary however the main fermentation stopped.after 2 or 3 days. Yeast rafts moving around all over and nice bubbly at the top.

 

[peterj]

Why isn't that long enough? I still see it fermenting in the secondary however the main fermentation stopped.after 2 or 3 days. Yeast rafts moving around all over and nice bubbly at the top.

If you are going to secondary it, you should let it completely finish fermenting in the primary and give it at least a day or two extra to help clean up any off flavors produced during fermentation. Having the beer in contact with the large yeast cake during all of this helps the process along.

If you're transferring that early though I would imagine you're still getting a pretty good yeast cake even in your secondary. And in that case, what's the point of transferring off some yeast and letting it sit on other yeast?

Secondary "fermentation" is really a misnomer. You shouldn't have any actual fermentation going on in the secondary, it's really just for conditioning. Unless of course you're adding some kind of sugar like fruit or something.

 

[brewprint]

Seems like there are many schools of thought as to what, when, and why people use a secondary. I mainly put the batch I'm referring to in this thread in there so I could get another batch in the primary. Major fermentation stopped and the directions said to bottle it after 4 days or something like that. I figured I'd give it at least a week in the secondary to 'get to know itself.'

 

[peterj]

Seems like there are many schools of thought as to what, when, and why people use a secondary. I mainly put the batch I'm referring to in this thread in there so I could get another batch in the primary. Major fermentation stopped and the directions said to bottle it after 4 days or something like that. I figured I'd give it at least a week in the secondary to 'get to know itself.'

Yeah, I think the majority of people on this forum will say that secondaries are generally unnecessary unless you're adding wood, fruit, etc. or bulk aging for an extended period. But there are certainly some people who do use secondaries.

If you just needed another fermenter, why not use your secondary as a primary? If it's only a 5 gallon carboy you could just hook up a blow off tube and be good to go.

Also, a lot of kit instructions are notoriously terrible. They usually have outdated techniques and/or are trying to rush the process as fast as possible so you can get "done" and buy more kits I guess.

 

[BGBC]

Yeah, I think the majority of people on this forum will say that secondaries are generally unnecessary unless you're adding wood, fruit, etc. or bulk aging for an extended period. But there are certainly some people who do use secondaries.

If you just needed another fermenter, why not use your secondary as a primary? If it's only a 5 gallon carboy you could just hook up a blow off tube and be good to go.

Also, a lot of kit instructions are notoriously terrible. They usually have outdated techniques and/or are trying to rush the process as fast as possible so you can get "done" and buy more kits I guess.

Agreed on all points.

And those kit instructions that say bottle after 4 days? I'd consider that a typo and read it as 4 weeks instead.

Every fermentation is different, so you can't follow kit instructions on when to bottle as the rule. Trust your hydrometer readings.

 

[brewprint]

Well I re-read the instructions to find out that it said to bottle it 3-4 days after the major fermentation had ceased. That would total about a week in the primary.

What could happen to this beer since I took it out of the primary after 5 days and put it in the secondary? It's still in the secondary BTW.

 

[kh54s10]

If you bottle without being sure that fermentation has stopped... Open those beers with a flack vest, Kevlar gloves, and a full face shield.

Research bottle bombs...


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[brewprint]

If you bottle without being sure that fermentation has stopped... Open those beers with a flack vest, Kevlar gloves, and a full face shield.

Research bottle bombs...


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

It's still in the secondary.

 

[peterj]

Well I re-read the instructions to find out that it said to bottle it 3-4 days after the major fermentation had ceased. That would total about a week in the primary.

What could happen to this beer since I took it out of the primary after 5 days and put it in the secondary? It's still in the secondary BTW.

Yeah you should throw the kit instructions away, they're terrible. That's not enough time in the fermenter, and using absolute time tables for fermentation is a bad idea. It's really hard to teach yeast how to use a calendar, so they might not know it's been 3-4 days and they need to be done fermenting. They're just gonna do their own thing and brewers just need to monitor their progress no matter how long it takes them.

My general rule is to leave it in primary for at least 2 weeks then if everything looked normal (vigorous ferment for 3-5 days and then about a week of winding down) you should take gravity readings 2 or 3 days apart to see if the gravity changes. If it doesn't change and it's around where you expect it should be, then it's probably done fermenting and you can go ahead and bottle.

As for your beer, I think it should be just fine. If it's been around 2 weeks since you pitched the yeast I would take a gravity reading, then wait a couple of days and take another one. If it's done fermenting, bottle it.

 

[brewprint]

What method do you use to take a gravity reading from a secondary? An auto siphon just filling the 'thing' for the hydrometer?

 

[peterj]

What method do you use to take a gravity reading from a secondary? An auto siphon just filling the 'thing' for the hydrometer?

Yeah, that will work. I use this type of wine thief, which will basically do the same thing but it won't drip as much as the auto siphon tube and it will take more beer at one time. You could also use a dedicated, sanitized turkey baster. Just make sure you thoroughly sanitize whatever you use and try not to aerate the beer when you do it.

If you don't want to take a big sample every time you could also use a refractometer, but you have to use a correction calculator because they are not accurate once alcohol is present.