Refill to 5 gallons in secondary?

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tek210

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Am just about to transfer a batch of Irish Red to secondary and wondering if after transfer, should I be restoring the water level to the five gallon mark? Should I add fresh cold water or will adding new water to the mix, mess things up.

Any advice is appreciated.

Joe
 
How far off are you? Depends on where your gravity is at imo. If its where its supposed to be youll just be watering it down. If you do add water just make sure you sanitize everything as usual. Contamination is a lot less likely at this point since theres an alcohol content.
 
Well, you can remember that adding water will water down the beer. That is usually not a good thing.

I don't rack to a clearing vessel very often any more ("secondary") but if you do, don't add water unless you take a sample of the beer and think it would taste even better watered down. (You won't!)

A five gallon batch into the fermenter will produce less than 5 finished gallons of beer. If you want 5 gallons of finished beer, it'd be better to make a 5.5 gallon batch to start with. Most kits are 5 gallons, though, so make about 4.5 gallons of beer.
 
I checked the gravity and it was at 1.008, which is where I want it. I got about 4.5 gallons which is fine. We shall see how it comes out in about a month.

Thanks for the quick response.
 
Get a commercial sample of the style you are making if one is available, pour out part of it and add water. That is exactly what you will be doing if you add water to your secondary. You should consider adding water if it will make more beer. This means you do it anytime before fermentation, because it is not beer yet. After the yeast have done their work it is beer and adding water just makes it worse beer.

As for secondary or not, it is up to you. I used to always secondary my batches and still occasionally do. However, I let many go until they clear in primary because the old fears of autolysis of the yeast appear to be more a problem for commercial brewers dealing with hundreds of gallons sitting on top of a compacted yeast cake. When should you secondary:

  • If you need primary space then move the beer to secondary.
  • If you want to add stuff like dry-hops, fruit or oak then consider a secondary if it make this easier.
  • If you think it will be better for your particular batch then secondary.
  • If you just want to play with your beer or practice your racking then secondary.

In other words if you want to secondary or think it will help then do it. If you don't want to, but someone told you that you have to then don't bother.
 
Don't add water unless you're looking for Coors or Bud Light. And make sure it's sterilized water.

As for skipping the secondary, I will respectfully add my two cents. First plastic is gas permeable and not suitable for long term storage. Secondary in glass for longer term fermentation. If you use a glass primary, ignore this. If you're doing a 1-2 week beer, ignore this. I would also secondary if you want to get as much sediment out of your finished product as possible.
 
My $0.02 also. I only use a secondary if I'm trying to especially clear a brew or you intend to age it. Clearing doesn't take that long so I take my chances with some extra head space (and personally I only make the extra effort to clear ciders I serve like wine). For aging, I actually brew extra and ferment in a 1 gallon carboy. Primary for 3 weeks then fill the secondary near to the top with the beer from both primaries.

I must say too that I keg and dry hop in the keg, so I can't speak to dry hoping and traditional secondaries.
 
I typically have not used a secondary fermenter, glass by the way, but I added a ball valve to my kettle with what I think is called the bazooka tube. It did work pretty well, although the hops still clog it up quick and I had to keep scraping the screen to clear it.
When I tranferred it to the fermenter it seemed to have more sediment than I have had in the past using the funnel with a screen.

Any tips on transfer of the wort to the fermenter? Is it just a matter of patience or is there some technique I am missing?
 
You could always get a funnel. Ive seen people use quite large ones and just pour the wart from the kettle into the fermenter that way. Right now i just use an auto-siphon.
 
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