Secondary Fermentation for the Noob

[jkharris200634]

I made an Helles Bock on 1/19/15 and it took 3 1/2 days to start fermenting. The airlock has yet to bubble or I just haven't seen it and I've been watching a lot. It did have a nice big Krausen though and it's been very violent in the carboy. It's been ten days since then and the Krausen has started to subside (but it's still there) and it's not as violent in the carboy. Should I transfer to secondary fermentation now or wait until it stops completely? Thanks guys

 

[wildactbrewer]

Personally, I don't use a secondary. The secondary or not debate is a whole other can of worms

In this case I would wait until your gravity is stable and everything starts to settle out. before you transfer. If you had a high krausen with no airlock activity I would suspect a leak. This isn't a huge issue but you may want to check it out.

 

[RandallFlag]

Is there a reason to use a secondary? Sitting in the primary for up to about a month will not hurt your beer and it will clear just fine in the primary. I only secondary when there is a need...like a long aging period or dry hopping schedule.

 

[RM-MN]

Is there a reason to use a secondary? Sitting in the primary for up to about a month will not hurt your beer and it will clear just fine in the primary. I only secondary when there is a need...like a long aging period or dry hopping schedule.

I've been told that sitting in the primary over 8 months doesn't seem to hurt the beer but I've never gone past 9 weeks. That beer turned out really good though.

 

[TheHappyHopper]

I would agree with everyone here - let it sit for 2 weeks or so and then start taking hydrometer readings. If the reading is the same 3 days in a row, fermentation is complete and it is ready to bottle. Or, if you don't have a hydrometer, I would say leave it in the fermenter for 3 weeks and it should definitely be done by then.

 

[kombat]

Your airlock has a leak, probably around the bung. Don't bother with secondary. Let the beer sit for 3 full weeks in primary and don't bother with checking gravity except to determine ABV. After 3 weeks, cold-crash the fermenter and add gelatin (Google it) to really clear it up. Then bottle/keg it a week later. You'll have delicious, crystal-clear beer.

 

[andy6026]

I secondary. It reduces the amount of trub and hob debris that goes into the bottling bucket from racking, which in turn can clog my bottling wand and get into the bottles causing a few volatile openings. So I do it whenever I'm not being lazy.

Not everyone secondaries, and that's fine of course, but I recommend to all new Brewers that they try both methods and see what works best for them.

 

[kombat]

I secondary. It reduces the amount of trub and hob debris that goes into the bottling bucket from racking

Does it? How? I'm not trying to be curt, but I've yet to see a scientific explanation that supports your assertion. Logically, it would seem that agitating the beer mid-process would hurt clarity, not help it, as particles that have been slowly falling out of solution are mixed back into even distribution throughout the beer. Intuitively, I would think that using proper racking technique (with the tip of the siphon just below the surface of the beer during the entire transfer, ceasing as you approach the yeast/trub cake at the bottom) would result in clearer beer if it's left undisturbed for the entire time until it's time to bottle/keg.

which in turn can [...] get into the bottles causing a few volatile openings.

How would a little extra yeast or hop material result in "volatile" openings? Yeast don't ferment hops, so what's happening here?

Not everyone secondaries, and that's fine of course, but I recommend to all new Brewers that they try both methods and see what works best for them.

Of course everyone can do whatever they want, and you can certainly still make great beer using sub-optimal techniques, but I've yet to see a scientific explanation that has convinced me that racking the beer to another vessel improves clarity at all. Indeed, if anything, it would make it worse.

 

[hou_me]

It's not ready for secondary yet. Give it a little while longer. A lot of people don't do a secondary anymore. There are pros and cons to both ways-- I use one when I want to add stuff, when I need the fermenter, or if the beer is going to sit in primary longer than three or four weeks. (maybe it's in my head, but I can taste a difference when my beer sits in primary too long)


-ben

 

[standpoint]

Personally I'm a fan of using secondaries and almost always do. I like to get the beer out of primary after about 3 weeks, then put in secondary for at least two, cold crashing for at least one week. I often dry hop in secondary too.

 

[Zolon]

I use secondaries. Old habit from mead making days. It is required, is there proof in the why? .. Not that I have seen. Yet, I have not seen proof against it beyond "added work". Also, but running the secondary, if I decide at the last minute to throw something in (spice/chocolate/whatever), I prefer (notice that, preference) to do that with it in a secondary.

Now, on when to move to a secondary? .. I wait 3 days after the krausen has dropped. At least. Sometimes a week.

Of course, I am still new to brewing beer. Most of my experience is from meads, and even then, it is experience that has not been utilized for over a decade. I'm only on my second batch of beer.

 

[andy6026]

Does it? How? I'm not trying to be curt, but I've yet to see a scientific explanation that supports your assertion. Logically, it would seem that agitating the beer mid-process would hurt clarity, not help it, as particles that have been slowly falling out of solution are mixed back into even distribution throughout the beer. Intuitively, I would think that using proper racking technique (with the tip of the siphon just below the surface of the beer during the entire transfer, ceasing as you approach the yeast/trub cake at the bottom) would result in clearer beer if it's left undisturbed for the entire time until it's time to bottle/keg.

I ferment in my basement. There is no suitable place there for me to lift the fermenter up to rack to the bottling bucket, so bringing the fermenter upstairs to my kitchen inevitably agitates it enough to lift some trub and hop debris off the bottom which, as I said, can get then get into the bottling bucket and clog my wand. Racking to secondary as an intermediary step eliminates the vast majority of the trub and hop debris getting into the bottling bucket.

How would a little extra yeast or hop material result in "volatile" openings? Yeast don't ferment hops, so what's happening here?

See posts #5 and #9 from this thread where a few others have reported the same experience - one suggesting that the hop debris can provide a nucleation site for C02. I don't know if that's a correct explanation, but experience shows that the phenomena isn't unheard of and many have attributed its causation the same as myself.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/dry-hopping-hops-bottle-108832/

Of course everyone can do whatever they want, and you can certainly still make great beer using sub-optimal techniques, but I've yet to see a scientific explanation that has convinced me that racking the beer to another vessel improves clarity at all. Indeed, if anything, it would make it worse.

As I suggested above, some of us have a set-up that inevitably increases the likelihood of agitating hob debris and trub off the bottom during or immediately prior to racking. If your set-up allows you to easily and conveniently avoid any agitation and to rack perfectly then that's great, but others are less fortunate.

Last, a note on the scientific method: Science is based on hypothesis, observing an experience/experiment, and then either rejecting the hypothesis or keeping it until later disproved (science can never prove something to be true). There is no 'why' in science, but merely repetitious experience of the 'what' or 'how'. That's how human beings attribute 'causation', - by repeating the same phenomenon enough times until a result can be correctly predicted. To say 'why' something happens denotes a motivation - a conscious force directing the process. Nonetheless, many English speakers, including some dictionaries, have co-opted the term to mean all and any explanation for processes. Nonetheless, science is merely the observation of phenomena that appear to have a causal relationship - and since the senses are always fallible, there's never a guarantee that the resulting conclusion is correct. Therefore the process of me observing hops getting into my bottles, and attributing the resulting gushers to be caused by those hops is nothing less than science. I tell you this because many people, and you may or may not be one of them, put 'science' on a pedestal and ironically attribute 'magical' qualities to it. In turn, the people that wear white coats become the new high-priests of modern living.