Just racked my Irish red from northern brewer to secondary. This is my first batch, super stoked! I gave it two weeks primary, and Thursday will be a week in secondary. Was wondering if I should bottle after one week in secondary, or give it another week?? Anyone brewed this? Advice?
Racking to secondary
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rdkopp0153
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Did you hit your final gravity before transferring to secondary? If so, it's either condition in the secondary or condition in the bottle, it doesn't really matter. If you are looking for more clarity, extended time in the secondary will help with that.
That was my first kit too. I had mine in primary for 2 weeks, secondary for a week then bottled for 2 weeks. Came out pretty good. I would make it again but Im not really doing extract anymore. Great kit though, you will enjoy it.
Yes, yes, some. I have one of those in the fermenter and I plan to bottle it today. I'm only planning to let mine have 2 weeks in primary and no secondary. I usually let them have 3 weeks in primary and no secondary but I have quite good temperature control so I should have little off flavors for the yeast to clean up. Your choice whether to bottle after one week in secondary or to wait another week. I'd bottle it now.
This is a repeat for me although I got the first kit from Midwest as and extract kit (came out tasty, so I want it again) and this time I'm working from the recipe and doing it all grain.
On to the advice. A little late for this batch but my ales start with wort that is at or a little below the fermentation temperature when I pitch the yeast and I ferment cool, about 62 degrees where I ferment which keeps the temperature of the fermenting beer about 64 max and I keep the beer cool until the fast part of the ferment is over, then let it warm to 72 for the rest of the time. Starting and keeping it cool for the first few days limits the production of compound that give you off flavors in the beer. given time the yeast can clean up a lot of the off flavors but I'd rather they didn't produce them in the first place.
Ales mature in the bottle too. The darker the ale and the higher the alcohol the longer they take. Your beer will need about 3 weeks to carbonate properly but it might take a bit longer to hit peak flavor. Enjoy, make another beer soon.
In general bulk aging is a good thing to do. This can be done in the primary or the secondary. Either method is perfectly acceptable and will give you slightly different results. The higher the starting gravity, the longer you will want to condition before packaging. For a beer of 1.050 or below, if you pitched the proper amount of yeast, and were well oxygenated, and had good temperature control, a beer could be fully conditioned and ready to package in two weeks. If any of the above were off a little, then you should allow some extra time for the byproducts of fermentation to be cleaned up (there is still plenty of yeast for this purpose if using a secondary)
