Secondary fermentation - any point?

[jat147]

Howdy,

You know how we all do things, but don't really know why - other than just going thru the motions of a habit that we've always had?

Mine is secondary fermentation. After 5-7 days in primary I've always racked to another, clean FV for another week or so before bottling with the notion that this helps to clear the beer better - and removes the beer from the dead yeast and trub. A page in Chris Whites' 'yeast' book says this is pointless, and actually counter-productive.

I'm not looking for a debate on whether this is true or not - I'm sure Chris has much science behind his writings - I'm just wondering if anyone else feels the need to do this, and if any observations have been recorded that show some benefit to using a secondary FV?.

 

[WoodlandBrew]

It seems the thing to do these days is to skip racking beer to the secondary. I have noticed that the viability of the yeast cake is much lower with batches that have fruit added. Cell counts of four batches show this.

So racking to a secondary to save the cake when adding fruit looks like a good idea.

 

[jat147]

Thanks very much, that's just the kind of exception to the rule that I was looking for. I guess there will be other conditions that allow for racking to take place, with added benefits.

 

[Revvy]

This is the most discussed topic on here.....It's been covered all over here, part of the reason it's even come up in that book, is because we were the first website to posit the idea that it wasn't necessary. We were the ones that sparked the debate. It's been discussed, debate, whatever you want to call it, to death on here.

This is the best dicussion on the topic to be found on here. You can read all the thoughts on it there.
To Secondary or Not? John Palmer and Jamil Zainasheff Weigh In .

 

[jat147]

Thanks for that Revvy, That's just the thread I was needing to read

 

[Revvy]

No problem. See we started all this back in 08...so most of the discussions and arguments have played themselves out (if you ever want to see the evolution of the debate, do a search some day of the words autolysis and Revvy. And you will see how at times vicious the arguments on here got. But it sparked an interest, or a curiousity, and the Basic brewing guys started experimenting with long primaries, then John Palmer admitted he just repeated the "common wisdom" without giving it any thought, or seeing that folks were actually skipping secondary and opting for long primary instead, and liking the results, then BYO magazine even starting posting recipes that included extended primaries, and the "consciousness" shifted. And it became just another option for people.

So really discussions, and arguments, and debates are just so old, that folks just don't get to much action on here anymore, we're all pretty burned out with it all. Now it's like, read what's already on here, try it for yourself, and make your own mind. But as you can see from the lack of response to your thread, it's pretty much not a topic that folks jump on anymore.

 

[helibrewer]

Thanks very much, that's just the kind of exception to the rule that I was looking for. I guess there will be other conditions that allow for racking to take place, with added benefits.

Long aging with oak is another occasion that some will use secondary vessels but even that has been argued as a fair number of folks have done very long aging in primary.