Primary fermentation in my bottling bucket - now what?

[BoiledPeanut]

First timer here and followed the instructions that came with the kit and have a nice 3 day old batch in my plastic bottling bucket bubbling nicely. The directions call for moving to the glass carjoy at 1 week for secondary fermentation.

Looking on here it appears the consensus is no need for secondary fermentation.

So couple of questions:
First. Now what? Leave in the bucket for a month, then bottle directly? Wouldn't the crud on the bottom be sucked up by the spigot? Invest in a second bottling bucket? (Im tired of investing!) Or transfer to the glass carjoy, clean the bucket, transfer back to the bucket to bottle? Or the heck with all your opinions about secondary fermentation, follow the instructions and rack to the carjoy for a secondary fermentation?

Secondly. Next batch. Transfer to the glass carjoy right after brewing for primary and only fermentation? Then rack back to the bucket only for bottling?

 

[PoorBoy]

secondary fermentation is generally used for clarity, or for flavor additions such as fruit / oak. it's not required. I'd follow your instructions on this batch, but for the next one, utilize your carboy as your primary, and just rack to the bucket to bottle.

 

[zeg]

I would secondary in this situation. Not necessarily a long one, but when I fermented in my bottling bucket, I gave it about two weeks there before racking to a carboy for another few weeks. It worked. You don't necessarily need to leave it in secondary for long, but I'd give it at least overnight, and probably a week to let things really settle out before racking back to the bottling bucket for bottling.

Next time, yes, just primary in the carboy. Some people don't like it because if you have a 5 gal carboy you don't have extra space so you'll lose some beer to blow-off, but I don't see that as a big deal. But in general you can ignore instructions to go to secondary except when there's a specific reason to move to a new container. The general consensus is that it's not necessary simply for aging purposes, other than in specific circumstances or very long aging periods.

 

[amandabab]

use a secondary , it will free up your bottling bucket.

Some are way over the top on being anti-secondary.

 

[Pie_Man]

Welcome to the forum. In your case, you probably want to transfer the beer to the glass carboy to free up your bottling bucket. This will avoid getting too much yeast and trub in your bottled beer. You may want to consider doing your primary fermentations in a carboy and if you choose to secondary, use the bottling bucket for that, and then bottle straight from your secondary/bottling bucket.

Secondaries are more from clearing up the beer, lagering, or things like adding additional hops (dry hopping) or fruit. You can get similar clarifying results without transferring to a second vessel by cooling your beer to fridge-like temperatures for a few days. This is why many on this forum don't bother with the secondary, but it's completely up to you. Of course, just make sure that everything that touches your beer is sanitized and you'll be fine.

Also, I can imagine that the spout on your bottling bucket might get pretty gummed up if you transfer to a secondary using that (as opposed to siphoning). Personally, I'd remove the spout to clean and sanitize it which is never a bad idea.