Religion, politics, and secondary...

[BigStew84]

All seem to be topics of much debate..but I'll stick with the latter! I am curious why people decide to skip the secondary?? I am fairly new to home brewing and have made under a dozen beers...all of which I racked into the secondary and had no issues with...I just joined the forums yesterday and have noticed a lot of people saying to skip the secondary..just curious what the benefits of skipping are or if having it spend a week in there is just wasting a week the beer can be conditioning in bottles...cheers guys!!

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

Benefits: for long term bulk aging racking to secondary gets the brew off the yeast and let's you put it in a fermenter with less head space to reduce possible oxygen exposure. Also, it's good if you want to harvest yeast from primary before you add something like fruit to secondary.

Detriments: any time you transfer beer you introduce the possibility of infection and/or oxidation. Plus you lose a little more of the final product.

The traditional reason for secondary was to get clearer beer. However, it has been shown that with careful siphoning to bottling bucket of keg (and maybe using cold crashing and gelatin) you can get beer just as clear without using secondary.

For me, skipping secondary is just one less step in the process, one less chance for infection/oxidation and has made no difference in the clarity of my beer. I pretty much only use it for my lagers and mainly because it frees up my main fermenter sooner.

 

[BigStew84]

Benefits: for long term bulk aging racking to secondary gets the brew off the yeast and let's you put it in a fermenter with less head space to reduce possible oxygen exposure. Also, it's good if you want to harvest yeast from primary before you add something like fruit to secondary.

Detriments: any time you transfer beer you introduce the possibility of infection and/or oxidation. Plus you lose a little more of the final product.

The traditional reason for secondary was to get clearer beer. However, it has been shown that with careful siphoning to bottling bucket of keg (and maybe using cold crashing and gelatin) you can get beer just as clear without using secondary.

For me, skipping secondary is just one less step in the process, one less chance for infection/oxidation and has made no difference in the clarity of my beer. I pretty much only use it for my lagers and mainly because it frees up my main fermenter sooner.

Very true...I have been lucky and borderline psychotic about my sanitizing haha so I luckily haven't had any infections or anything like that...I actually did it to clarify the beer as well but if it's not making any difference than I may start skipping it too..I was just curious why some (who I'm sure have a lot more brews under their belt than me) seemed so against it..but if I can drink a week sooner..mama didn't raise no fool! [emoji482]

 

[Risy1]

I was under the same thought that you were under, I've talked to a lot of the local brewers/brewpubs in the area and they have all said that they skip secondary for the reasons Blue house brought up.

 

[seabrew8]

All seem to be topics of much debate..but I'll stick with the latter! I am curious why people decide to skip the secondary?? I am fairly new to home brewing and have made under a dozen beers...all of which I racked into the secondary and had no issues with...I just joined the forums yesterday and have noticed a lot of people saying to skip the secondary..just curious what the benefits of skipping are or if having it spend a week in there is just wasting a week the beer can be conditioning in bottles...cheers guys!!

Nothing wrong with a secondary. I'm just too lazy and i really don't have enough containers. Besides, cold crash and gelatin has made a secondary obsolete in my opinion.

 

[MaryB]

No need to unless the beer needs a long ferment period.

I ferment in my bottling buckets, once that yeast settles it stays put even when I carefully stir in priming sugars. I take my hydrometer sample first then put the bottling wand on the spigot. That way any yeast that settled in the spigot end up in the sample jar. Started doing it that was 3-4 months ago and won't go back. I don't do any super high ABV beers that need the long secondary to finish the ferment properly. I prefer simple English ales that run around 5.4%ABV and taste great young! Same for the occasional IPA, nothing over 7% so no need for a long secondary.

 

[brandonlovesbeer]

You can do secondary. But it is not necessary. It's been Proven through multiple tests and experiments that secondary makes absolutely zero difference for a normal homebrew batch.
Unless you are aging the beer or adding fruit for it to sit on, don't waste your time.
It's just another opportunity to get an infection.

 

[Pappers_]

For the past year or so, after fermentation is done, I've been racking most of my beers into a clean and sanitized carboy and then cold crashing/aging for a week or so, before kegging/bottling. So not so much using it as a secondary but more like a bright tank.

 

[Bringamanabeer]

All seem to be topics of much debate..but I'll stick with the latter! I am curious why people decide to skip the secondary?? I am fairly new to home brewing and have made under a dozen beers...all of which I racked into the secondary and had no issues with...I just joined the forums yesterday and have noticed a lot of people saying to skip the secondary..just curious what the benefits of skipping are or if having it spend a week in there is just wasting a week the beer can be conditioning in bottles...cheers guys!!

Oh man, get ready to duck, move to cover, and communicate! You just poked the hornet nest.

I too am brand new here and the 1st response was "why did you secondary" after I had mentioned it was my 1st brew.

Good luck!

 

[SlitheryDee]

I'm just sort of in favor of not doing things I don't really need to do. The success people here on the forums report combined with the experiments done by sites like brulosophy have convinced me that I don't need to secondary for the vast majority of beers, so I don't.

 

[Jim311]

Mostly because I'm lazy. Secondarily (no pun intended) I see no reason to risk oxidation, infection, and time sanitizing and cleaning if I don't have to. There are very few cases I'd even consider a secondary.

 

[Dcpcooks]

The point of a secondary fermentation is to allow a beer to mature, infuse it with additional ingredients or barrel age it.

The old school view was beer will be harmed by the autolysis of yeast. And that would happen relatively quickly in the process. Autolysis in yeast is the disintegration or rupture of yeast cells after death. This releases the cellular contents back into your beer causing off flavors. Think of broth and umami flavors in your beer.

Unless you have mishandled your yeast or fermentation you should be safe within 6-8 weeks of pitching your yeast and most likely longer.

Since it's extremely common practice to move a beer to bottle or keg within 3-4 weeks of primary fermentation, you'll have very little risk of mass yeast death.

You'll read that the best place to store yeast for future use is under the beer it fermented.

So unless you have a specific reason to remove a beer from the yeast cake, I see no reason to move your beer off the original cake. It will clear the same on or off the cake. You can dry hop on the cake without damage. (you may want to harvest the yeast for future use and removing it before a dry hop will make the rinsing/ cleaning of yeast easier)

Additionally you can expose your beer to oxidation or infection with a transfer to secondary. I'd argue that far more homebrew beers are oxidized than experience mass cell death and autolysis.

 

[InLimbo]

I'd argue that far more homebrew beers are oxidized than experience mass cell death and autolysis.

This line should be made a sticky and posted at the top of the forum so that every time the "why shouldn't I secondary?" thread comes up, people can read this Better yet, Father Charles Papazian should revise his book and get rid of his recommendation to rack every frigging beer he has a recipe for to into secondary.. I know that's why I started doing it until I knew better.

I'm an active BJCP judge, and the number one biggest problem with homebrew is oxidation (followed closely by astringency). I'm not saying all people who enter oxidized homebrew are racking to secondary, but any step a homebrewer (especially a new brewer) can eliminate in order to not oxidize your beer is a fantastic idea.

 

[BigStew84]

Awesome feedback! Def makes a ton of sense from not wanting to risk ruining the beer to just not feeling like doing it...I have to say after reading this I will most likely just go from primary to bottle and save work and time! [emoji482]

 

[shoengine]

Don't worry, just like everything else the recommendations will change in 10 years.

 

[BigStew84]

Don't worry, just like everything else the recommendations will change in 10 years.

It's like eggs...every year it changes weather they are good or bad for you haha

 

[r4dyce]

Agreed with a lot of what is said here. I really don't do secondary because my original kits didn't include them. But I've never seen a need to do it anyway.

 

[Pappers_]

. . .

So unless you have a specific reason to remove a beer from the yeast cake, I see no reason to move your beer off the original cake. It will clear the same on or off the cake. . . .

One of the reasons I do usually transfer my beer for a week or so of cold crashing, rather than crashing in the original fermenter, is the 'system' I'm working with - my fermentation and cold crashing happen in different areas and I've found that, even being very careful, I tend to swirl up a lot of yeast when getting it into the cold crash fridge. So, for my process, racking before moving it makes sense. If I were cold crashing by changing the temp on my one fridge, I probably wouldn't rack most of the time.

As for oxidation, it can be avoided by using good brewing practices. If you make sure you're transferring in a manner where the hose is submerged and not splashing beer and you top off with CO2, racking isn't going to be a cause of oxidation.

One of the great things about brewing as a hobby is that there are many ways to make good beer. I've made good beer with racking to a bright tank and without doing so - its an issue of preference not good/bad, in my opinion.

 

[Sailingeric]

My keg is my secondary. I go from fermenter to the keg and anything cold crashing does not get, the first pint of beer will get the rest. After that it is usually clear beer for the rest of the keg.

 

[Yesfan]

Another primary only user. A Zombie Dust clone I done recently.

I used a hop spider during the boil and whirlfloc the last 15 minutes, but nothing else. I didn't even use a bag/strainer when I dry hopped. Just pitched the pellets in the primary fermenter. No finings or anything in the keg either.

Yes, that first week it was kegged, it was somewhat hazy, but it has cleared pretty nice since then.