Racking to a secondary with a wheat beer...

[mhdfj2]

I just checked my FG of my first batch and it was right on the money. And the sample actually tasted pretty damn good. My question is whether or not to rack to a secondary? I have heard many different opinions on racking wheat beers to a secondary and wanted to see if it is better to or just go straight to bottling.

 

[bigjohnmilford]

I say get to bottling.

 

[JnJ]

I would not rack to secondary. The secondary is used for clarifying, you don't want to clarify a wheat beer, you want the yeasties in the bottle.

 

[Evan!]

+1. Just make sure that gravity is terminal/stabilized before bottling.

 

[BrianTheBrewer]

You can go either way. Myself and my brew crew put our first wheat beer into a seconday because it was very dark and thick and we wanted to thin it out just a little. If you do go with the secondary just do it for a week then bottle it after for 3 weeks. Good luck

 

[riored4v]

I just put my wheat into a secondary, but mainly because i needed the primary.

The directions for the kit from AHS actually recommended to put it into a secondary, although i probably wouldn't have done that if i didnt need the primary.

 

[homebrewer_99]

I secondary my Hefe Weizens. The reason is because this way I can control just how much of the fallen out yeast I want to put back into suspension.

I try to add just enough yeast into the bottling bucket that will transfer into the bottle and fall out again. This way there's not a lot of yeast in the bottle when I pour it into the glass.

 

[jmiracle]

You can go either way. Myself and my brew crew put our first wheat beer into a seconday because it was very dark and thick and we wanted to thin it out just a little. If you do go with the secondary just do it for a week then bottle it after for 3 weeks. Good luck

I don't want to go way off topic but how does a secondary thin out a beer? The only way I can think of short of diluting it is to have the yeast munch up more of the sugar, in that case wouldn't leaving the beer on the yeast cake be the way to go?

 

[Anthony_Lopez]

it doesnt thin it out, but it certainly clears it out a little bit... The primary was also needed for our batch of Boston Ale that went into primary on Friday night...

Cheers

 

[BrianTheBrewer]

By thin it out I mean it removes whatever was floating around in the beer which it did. Sorry I did not make myself clear.