No more secondary for me

[david58]

Well, I did let it sit a leetle bit longer than maybe I should, but both my pale ale (8 wks) and my steam beer (6 weeks) went from primary to bottle to belly and came out just fine. I admit I should have bottled a bit sooner, but these are both goooood beers (the CA beer needs a bit more time in the bottle, but the IPA is super after just 2 weeks in the bottle.

 

[beerspitnight]

Good stuff!
We too, are done with racking to secondary and will just keep the beer in the primary. Figuring on 21 to 28 days for most beers - the kegging, carbing, and drinking!

 

[Irrenarzt]

Primary only is a fine way to fly. Let those yeasties mop up any unwanted messes they made in the early stages of the fermentation. They can't do this if you take them away by racking to secondary.

 

[markg388]

secondary is just for dry-hopping, lagering and adding gelatin if you ask me.

 

[o4_srt]

secondary is just for dry-hopping, lagering and adding gelatin if you ask me.

I don't even use it for gelatin. Gelatin additions work fine in primary. Dry hopping, lagering, and fruit additions are the only reasons I secondary.

 

[paraordnance]

secondary is just for dry-hopping, lagering and adding gelatin if you ask me.

some even dry hop and lager in primaries, give it a shot

 

[ayoungrad]

I'm planning a secondary for a lager. But, otherwise I only secondary if I need the ferementing bucket. I dry hop in primary. And I've only done one fruit addition batch (peppers) but I also did that in the primary. Turned out great.

 

[ayoungrad]

some even dry hop and lager in primaries, give it a shot

re: lagering in the primary... Are there any clairty issues? Headspace issues? I primary in an ale pail.

 

[beertoole]

I have always questioned transferring into a secondary (for simple batches)...Can someone play devils advocate to this post before I stop using a secondary as well! lol
-=beertoole=-

 

[richbrew99]

I have also made the leap of faith with primary only with my now fermenting blonde ales. I will continue even with dry hopped beers, will secondary only if I want to harvest yeast from the dry hopped beers. Can't wait to try it!

 

[Hex]

I dryhop/secondary after 21 days and put a second beer/wort on the first yeast cake.

 

[FromZwolle]

as for fermentors
well, "there can be only one"
highlander reference.

 

[Golddiggie]

re: lagering in the primary... Are there any clairty issues? Headspace issues? I primary in an ale pail.

As long as you're not fermenting 6+ gallons you should be fine with dry hopping in the pail... I dry hopped an ESB in primary (6 gallon PET carboy) without any issue at all. 3 weeks on the yeast, then another week with dry hops before bottling it up. Batch was bottled almost 2 weeks ago, so it's almost time to chill one down to sample...

The ONLY times I'm racking to another vessel is for extended aging, aging on oak, adding a flavor element and need to get off of a previous addition first, or adding a flavor element that does better/best when not on the yeast cake... Basically, I rack to another vessel less frequently than you might think. Since going with the 'long primary' model, I've only racked 3 of my last 10 batches. All of those were either to get onto oak, or get off of another flavor element before adding oak. I'm pretty sure you can add oak into primary too, if you wanted to. So that's more of a personal choice than a required item...

For fermenters... "we are legion" Technically, I have about 8 5-6 gallon and 4 3 gallon sizes...

 

[dfess1]

Can someone play devils advocate to this post before I stop using a secondary as well! lol
-=beertoole=-

I don't have that many primaries? I do a bit of both. I make a house pale that is dry hopped, so it gets racked. However, it might just get racked straight to the keg and dry hop in the keg. I only have 4 6.5 gal carboys that I use for primaries. So if I have more than 4 beers going, I'm out of luck. I don't really see a reason why you couldn't just leave it in the primary, though I have always used a secondary (out of habit).

 

[paraordnance]

re: lagering in the primary... Are there any clairty issues? Headspace issues? I primary in an ale pail.

if given enough time - no clarity issues, I ferment in glass carboys exclusively, slap a solid bung on it once fermentation is done/temperatures are stable and lager away No additional transfers, no clean up. When beer is done, it gets transfered to a keg to carbonate. I don't have too much experience doing it this way but after one batch got infected in secondary, others end up with diacetyl, I'm affraid to move beer anywhere from primary fermenting vessel