How soon can I secondary?

[bondra76]

I have a fermentation setup that can only really house 1 carboy at a time.

My question is - how soon are you guys moving over to secondary? Is there a guiding rule I can use? I have a somewhat big beer in my fermentor right now (9.7 ABV) and I've got very slow blowoff tube activity. But it's also been fermenting for about a week already. I was thinking about moving it out of temp control and racking to secondary. The recipe calls for a fermentation temp of 66. If I secondary the beer and move it outside of temp control it would rise to 68 or so max.

I'm in a bit of a bind because I need to produce some more beers for the holiday but I'm limited by space in my fermentor.

 

[specharka]

I would really wait until your beer has attenuated to rack to secondary. But you can probably move it out of temp control by now. From what I understand, fusel alcohols and other harsh esters are only produced during the rapid expansion phase of yeast growth, not during the attenuative phase. And even if they are exposed to modestly higher temperatures during high krausen, it probably wouldn't affect the beer much (depending on yeast strain...some are very picky).

Give it at least another week in primary to attenuate, but you should not need the temperature control.

 

[m00ps]

I would buy yourself another fermentor and not bother secondarying unless you are adding like pounds of fruit or something. Most of the time, all it will do is add risk to your beer of oxygenation and infection

You can leave it on teh primary yeast cake for months and be fine

 

[dpatrickv]

For the most part, I never secondary unless Im racking onto fruit or aging something for a long time. Its just another thing that can introduce oxygen into your final beer.

Personally, go buy another bucket and ferment the new beer in that. You can move the original carboy out of the fermentation chamber without much adverse affect as temp really matters in the first phase of fermentation. As long as it doesnt rise 10-15 degrees, you will be fine.

 

[Spartan300man]

I went in to a local bakery last week and bought a dozen donuts for the office, and then hit them up for some old frosting buckets with lids. Both were 5 gallons, free, food grade, with lids. A grommet at Home Depot costs less than a buck, a bubble trap at the Brew store costs a couple bucks, done.

 

[specharka]

You can leave it on teh primary yeast cake for months and be fine

What about the risk of yeast autolysis affecting the beer?

 

[bbohanon]

Secondaries in my opinion are a waste. Leave the beer in primary for 3 weeks and rack it to the keg/bottles.
Secondaries only increase the risk of beer oxidation in my opinion.
YMMV

 

[m00ps]

autolysis largely applies to when we didnt have access to good healthy yeast. On my wild and sour beers, Ive left them for over 2 months in teh primary without issue. Ive seen some people going like up to 4 for strong beers and over a year with their sours

 

[kh54s10]

What about the risk of yeast autolysis affecting the beer?

Myth in a homebrew setting, unless possibly sitting on the yeast or many months or a year.....

 

[Delusions_Brewing]

I regularly rack from primary to a keg after 1-2 weeks (usually after 2 weeks). If you've pitched the right amount of yeast and controlled the temperature the beer will be fully fermented and ready to carbonate by that time. I almost never secondary unless I am adding fruit, it's nothing by an opportunity for infection and oxidation.

Now with 9.7 ABV, I would probably go 2 about weeks before removing it from the temp controlled environment, you're really just trying to make sure the temperature is controlled until it's at or very near the finish gravity. If the gravity readings say it's done after a week, I wouldn't hesitate to move it to a slightly warmer environment, although keep it in the original fermenting bucket/vessel.

 

[C-Rider]

What about the risk of yeast autolysis affecting the beer?

Old wife's tale. Only true for commercial brewers in HUGE tanks.

 

[bondra76]

There's three reasons I want to secondary - 1) I only have one 6.5 gallon glass carboy. My other carboys are 5 gallons. 2) I can only fit one carboy at a time into my ferment chamber 3) I want to start another beer ASAP.

I checked this am though and it's still active in the blowoff tube. I think I will just wait impatiently another week.

 

[mrorange38]

This is an interesting question to me, and one I have asked about before.

I will say that I am about an 8+ year still amateur to homebrewing, as I don't really brew all year , and have mostly only tried extract and partial mash kits.

So, with that being said, I think there might be some truth to the infection risk in moving the beer from one vessel to another.

However, as I've recently found out, there seems to be a twist on this regarding infections. If you brew in something like an opaque bucket, and are reluctant to check on it, it might not be a bad idea to plan a move to secondary (or at least a check on primary) within the first 2 weeks. I say this, because it seems you could possibly catch an infection early, and attempt to slow it or kill some of it off. If you just leave in primary and forget about it for a month, the infection could get further along. Just my thoughts, and I might be wrong about all this anyway!

 

[RM-MN]

This is an interesting question to me, and one I have asked about before.

I will say that I am about an 8+ year still amateur to homebrewing, as I don't really brew all year , and have mostly only tried extract and partial mash kits.

So, with that being said, I think there might be some truth to the infection risk in moving the beer from one vessel to another.

However, as I've recently found out, there seems to be a twist on this regarding infections. If you brew in something like an opaque bucket, and are reluctant to check on it, it might not be a bad idea to plan a move to secondary (or at least a check on primary) within the first 2 weeks. I say this, because it seems you could possibly catch an infection early, and attempt to slow it or kill some of it off. If you just leave in primary and forget about it for a month, the infection could get further along. Just my thoughts, and I might be wrong about all this anyway!

It's really hard to get infections in the primary. First off is that the beer is too acid for some bacteria, second is the CO2 produced by the fermentation is deadly to most bacteria, and third is that you started with so many yeast cells that immediately started reproducing that they swamp out the bacteria before they can get a start.

Where you are more likely to get an infection is when you move to a secondary with too much headspace. When you do the transfer, the CO2 layer that was protecting your beer is left behind, leaving you with only the CO2 dissolved in the beer to refill the headspace. If you fill a carboy to the neck, it leaves little space and the outgassing of the CO2 will push the air out and replace it with CO2 to protect your beer. If you move to a bigger carboy or to a bucket for secondary you have too much air with its airborne contaminants for the CO2 to push out and now your beer is unprotected.