Primary & secondary fermenting

[maplemontbrew]

Father brewing my hefeweizen I have always placed it in 6 gal. primary fermenter for a week then racked over to 5 gal. Secondary fermenter for a week. Do I need the secondary?

 

[maplemontbrew]

After brewing......

 

[RM-MN]

People have ideas of what to use secondary for and one of those is to clear the beer but a hefeweizen is meant to be cloudy so what's the point of secondary? I'd just leave it the primary until it is done.

 

[hophop]

Just did one. Primary for 3 weeks and done. It's meant to be cloudy, so there's nothing to gain from a secondary.

 

[brick]

As 5 people and you'll get 6 answers. I do rack into a carboy for a week because I can be less careful about picking up yeast from the bottom of my primary. Anything "extra" that gets picked-up settles into a thin layer at the bottom of the brite tank and nothing but beer (or very nearly) winds up in my bottling bucket. As expected, what makes it into the bottle is very clean. With my process, secondary makes the product better. Do whatever works for your process.

Personally I'd primary for longer than a week. I do 2 minumum (usually 3).