Hey!

[jpeebs]

Hey folks! Pretty new to brewing, but am enjoying it. I've got a simple setup; brewers best beginners kit and a turkey fryer basically. My first brew was a dark English ale (Newcastle-ish) that I was very impressed with. Just brewed my second today; a Yukon Scottish ale that I'm pretty excited about. Nothing too advanced yet, but I'd love to get into flavoring, and experimenting. Only question I can think of that I have at this moment is what does a second fermentation do/what is the process, and when should I do one?
Thanks for havin me!

 

[LuiInIdaho]

If you were to do a transfer to a secondary fermenter, you would do this after the beer has completed the fermentation (i.e., stopped bubbling). The real test for this is when your hydrometer remains at the same level for two days in a row. You would simply rack (siphon) the beer from the primary fermenter into the secondary fermenter. The purpose would be to move the beer off of the trub and yeast cake. Having said this, many people on the forum have quit doing a secondary fermentation except when dry hopping the beer. The consensus is that to not transfer the beer to secondary does not affect the flavor, and removes a possibility of introducing something to spoil the beer. Many times, if I am not dry hopping, I will not transfer to a secondary fermenter, but leave the beer on the yeast cake for the week or two that the beer if fermenting. Then I will rack to the bottling bucket and bottle.

I hope that this helps.

Mark

 

[kaconga]

Also you will want to do secondary "fermentations" when you add fruit or anything else which could potentially ferment a bit.