I'm bringing back the "Is secondary necessary?" argument

[COLObrewer]

I like boysenberry syrup on my pancakes . . . . .

 

[Bobby_M]

Might be this article (I had it bookmarked for the IBU measurement stuff). Halfway through they test for contaminants. 12 years ago... things have improved greatly in the area of sanitation since then.

http://brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue7.1/bonham.html

Interesting but no, it was more like 2 years ago. Now that I think of it, maybe it wasn't even BYO. Damn memory.

 

[rockfish42]

Either Zymurgy or BYO did an experiment comparing the two camps, but the methodology wasn't very precise and there results were mixed. In a blatant appeal to authority, Gordon Strong and Jamil Z. both recommend only using secondaries for fruit, sours or heavily dry hopped beers.

 

[Homercidal]

Either Zymurgy or BYO did an experiment comparing the two camps, but the methodology wasn't very precise and there results were mixed. In a blatant appeal to authority, Gordon Strong and Jamil Z. both recommend only using secondaries for fruit, sours or heavily dry hopped beers.

Must have been the basic brewing dudes who did that experiment. I love those guys, but their experiments are usually fairly crude and open to all sorts of variations, leading to inconclusion.

Which may support the theory that in a lot of cases, the precise method may not be all that important when brewing...

 

[Bobby_M]

Either Zymurgy or BYO did an experiment comparing the two camps, but the methodology wasn't very precise and there results were mixed. In a blatant appeal to authority, Gordon Strong and Jamil Z. both recommend only using secondaries for fruit, sours or heavily dry hopped beers.

I generally dislike appeals to authority, but in this case they are both multi-year Ninkasi winners so it's at least proof that their methodology isn't flawed completely.

 

[Bobby_M]

Damn, I wish I could remember what the key variable the experiment was testing for. I distinctly remember that it had something to do with contamination/infections in homebrew but that they ignored the use or lack of use of a secondary as a factor.

 

[pjj2ba]

In my opinion, there is no need for a long primary, UNLESS you like the flavors that staying on the yeast that long adds to the beer. Many people do like these flavors (a touch bready/yeasty), others do not. A long primary won't hurt your beer, but it won't necessarily make your beer better - unless you want those flavors. There is plenty of yeast in suspension though to do any "cleaning up" that might be necessary. The yeast that have settled out are not that metabolically active so don't really contribute much to any "cleaning up", but will impart some flavors.

For those of us who keg, the keg really is as Yooper said, a bright tank ("secondary")

There may be some benefit to bulk aging for those who bottle (keggers are always bulk aging - unless you drink it up right away ). For bottlers then there is the question of "secondary" or not. That is a personal choice, and depends on your taste buds. It has been shown by people who are well respected brewers that there is a definite difference in the two methods, but some folks preferred the tasted of one way, and some the other.