secondary fermation help

[Granvillen]

Is it necessary to transfer the beer from one fermenter to a 2nd fermenter . Will 2 weeks longer in the primary be a problem? I think there would be less contamination by leaving the beer in the ferementer and tossing in some day hops for the second fermentation. I will brewing a 3 gallon BIAB IPA. There will be 2 wks in Primary, 2 wks in secondary and 2 wks in bottle.

 

[bucketnative]

This is a common question, and I think a consensus has been reached. I believe that the reason a lot of the beginner recipes mention secondary fermentation is that it is an anachronism from the early days of homebrewing when yeasts were not as well developed for homebrewing processes. Nowadays, there is a lot less risk to the beer from leaving it on the yeast cake for a while:
1. There is no real need to transfer to secondary unless doing a fruit, spice, wood addition to the beer.
2. The beer is fine in primary for several weeks on the yeast cake. (I generally go a month or so in primary just because of my schedule)
3. You are correct that each transfer (racking) presents an opportunity for contamination or introduction of excess oxygen.

NOTE: Don't rely solely on the timing of steps to make your beer. Your time line is probably safe. But, the real measure of when fermentation is complete is a steady gravity reading over several days.

 

[DownstairsBrewing]

As bucketnative says, for an IPA, that can just be four weeks primary, with some dry hopping at some point.

 

[Hopsimus]

I personally do three weeks in primary for just about every brew.
The only time I do a secondary is if I want to do extended aging on a big beer, like a barleywine, or maybe a lager.

 

[RM-MN]

Is it necessary to transfer the beer from one fermenter to a 2nd fermenter . Will 2 weeks longer in the primary be a problem? I think there would be less contamination by leaving the beer in the ferementer and tossing in some day hops for the second fermentation. I will brewing a 3 gallon BIAB IPA. There will be 2 wks in Primary, 2 wks in secondary and 2 wks in bottle.

No, 2 MONTHS longer in the primary won't be a problem but you might not have the patience to wait that long.

Stretch your 2 weeks in the bottle to 3 weeks and you are likely to get better beer.