Primary Fermenter

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Genelec

Member
Joined
May 31, 2012
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
Location
West Vancouver
Hello, this is my first post on this forum. I want to try to make a Vienna Lager. On the recipe it says to ferment in primary until fermentation is finished then to transfer to a carboy and lager in a fridge for 3 weeks. So my question is what is the difference between a primary fermenter and a carboy. I only have a carboy at the moment.
Thanks a lot!
 
A primary fementer can be a bucket or a carboy, traditionally if it's a carboy used as a primary it is a 6 or 6.5 gallon, to leave between 1 and 1.5 gallon headspace for krausen and co2 (which protects the beer from oxygen exposure in a 5 gallon batch of beer.

The carboy used to "secondary" or in the case of Lagers, to lager, is actually a 5 gallon carboy, so there is NO headspace during the process. Since co2 isn't produced during lagering the lack of a headspace protects your beer.

What size carboy do you have?
 
A lager, like any beer takes as long as it needs to ferment. It's an organic process. Usually a week to 10 days. You determine it by taking to consequetive gravity readings over a three day period.

I suggest people take the first reading around day 12 and again on day 14. After fermentation the yeast, if given a chance likes to clean up after itself. So a few days before raking I think is a good thing.
 
So if you're planning to do a small batch lager the 3.17 is good for a 2.5 gallon batch of beer as a primary. You really want to go smaller for the lager phase. If you can't find a smaller vessel, then get another 3 gallon and get a bunch of glass marbles, boil them to sanitize, then you could add them to the beer after you rack, this will displace the liquid and minimize the headspace.
 
Okay great. One more question, in my first brew a lot of water evaporated and I ended up with 2.5L of beer. Can you have too much air in you Carboy?
 
That's the point of headspace. During primary o2 is produced which fills the headspace and protects the beer. So no, during primary fermentation....during a secondary/lager phase, too much can be a worrisome thing.
 
I glad you did, lol, but the liter post then through me for a loop....LOL

BTW if you're looking for a good vienna lager, I don't want to toot my own horn, but my vienna recipe in the pulldown below my avatar is excellant. I'm drinking it now...
 
That recipe looks really good, sadly I would have to order half of the ingredients online, my local brew shop doesn't have Caramunich Malt and Hallertauer Hops :( I'm making mine with Pilsner Malt, Tettnang Hops and Bavarian Lager yeast.
 
Back
Top