Secondary Fermentation

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MajorAce

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I've been reading some stuff on other forums and advised that secondary fermentation really isn't needed in homebrewing. What are others thoughts here? Trying to decide if I want to follow suit and not do the secondary and just leave it at one just running it a little longer.
 
For typical beers, secondary isn't needed.

In truth, most homebrewers are referring to a 'bright tank' when they say secondary. The transfer to another vessel exposes the beer to oxygen and potentially unwanted organisms. At the homebrew level (volume, not quality), autolysis will not be an issue during the 2-4 weeks most homebrewers allow for fermentation and bulk conditioning. Even 2-4 months shouldn't be an issue. Large commercial fermenters create a ton of pressure on the spent yeast cake at the bottom. We don't have that.

True secondaries, as in secondary fermentation, are a different story. I'm about to do a brett'd stock ale. It'll get 4wks in the primary where the saccharomyces will do its job then drop to the bottom. At that point I'll transfer to a smaller vessel, all the way up to the neck, for the brettanomyces to slowly do their work over the next 8-10mo.
 
I closed transfer every beer to a CO2 purged keg fitted with a spunding valve with 1-2% of extract remaining, raise the temp to 5°F higher than fermentation temp to allow the beer to secondary there. The residual yeast transferred with the beer consumes any O2 I inadvertently introduce, finishes fermenting the beer, and cleans up any byproducts. I leave it in secondary 7 days before moving the keg to cold crash under CO2 pressure. I don’t leave it in primary because I want the safe confines of the keg vs the fermenter that can allow O2 to creep in past the lid seal.
 
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Times to do a secondary:
* Barrel aging or other aging of a big beer
* Lambics, brett, anything with bacteria (on purpose)
* Lagers, especially bocks and dunkels, often with spunding for natural carbonation

Times to not do a secondary:
* Any IPA
* Anything hoppy
* Any pale beer except pale lagers
* Anything with delicate flavors that fade quickly (i.e. fruit beers)

Unlike wine, most beers do not improve with age. Drink it early and often!
 
I used a secondary once. It was and still is the worst beer I ever made. Oxidized out the wazoo even though I made efforts to fill the secondary with CO2 prior to transfer. There were other things I did wrong with that batch too that weren't from using a secondary that contributed to it being the worst.

So my advice is to not use them until you've got a lot of brews behind you and ironed out all the kinks with every other process you do.

IMHO.... Secondary's really should be a skilled brewer thing and not something that kits tell beginners to do.
 
99% of your brewing doesn't need a secondary. I bulk age in my fermenter if it needs some time to mellow. Even when I add fruit to my beers(which isn't often) I don't. I will rack to "secondary" when I am making mead and am getting it to clear up off the yeast cake or when I use bugs to finish a beer, which goes into a glass carboy or even a keg with minimal headspace to finish months down the road. The process when racking from primary to secondary needs to be bulletproof and needs to avoid oxygen ingress at all cost. This isn't an option unless you keg and have access to CO2 to purge your vessels before you rack, then racking quietly and gently to help keep the beer from taking up too much O2. For sake of simplicity and ease, I don't purely as I haven't seen any improvements in my beer, aside from those I mentioned, to use a secondary.
 
Where would an Irish Red rate? Instructions said 1 week in primary then re-rack to secondary for another week. Right now I'm a little over a week into primary. With leaving in primary should I transfer to another vessel to bottle or can I I do that from that same fermenter I've been using? I look to bottle this weekend.
 
I'd leave it in the primary until it clears up. I've left beer in the primary FV for five to six weeks on quite a few occasions waiting for it to clear up. You might can speed up the process by cold crashing it after you are certain that it's reached FG. But I haven't liked the two beers I've tried to rush with a cold crash.

The beers I left in the primary FV for 4, 5 and 6 weeks were all good to great beers. Can't say that for beers I've only kept in the FV for less than 2 weeks even though FG had been reached quite a few days before.
 
Where would an Irish Red rate? Instructions said 1 week in primary then re-rack to secondary for another week. Right now I'm a little over a week into primary. With leaving in primary should I transfer to another vessel to bottle or can I I do that from that same fermenter I've been using? I look to bottle this weekend.

It's just another beer. For whatever reason, many of the kits still include racking to secondary in their instructions. I let all my beers, aside from lagers, ride a full two weeks. As long as I pitched healthy yeast, all my ales are done by then. I take a gravity sample to ensure it's down to where it should be and package. I know some people say to rack to a bottling bucket from your fermenter to package, but I have packaged straight from my fermenter when I had buckets with spigots and never had an issue, just batch prime gently and have at it.
 
My fermenter doesn't have a spigot. Just a basic "primary fermenter" bucket. Not sure if that would impact any advice you all have.
 
Practice getting a siphon started and racking into whatever you are going to rack into with just a bucket of plain water.

If your tubing you are racking with is sanitized inside and outside and your gloved hand too, then you can just lower it completely into the FV and let it fill with beer. Then cap the end with your thumb or pinch it closed with one of those things I don't know the name of and then lower the other end lower than the bucket to begin the siphoning/racking.

And you need some way to keep the end of the hose in the bucket down in the beer without disturbing the trub on the bottom. I used another piece of stiff plastic tubing. However stainless tubing or even copper tube can also be used on both ends of the hose.
 
From a technical side, there is only one fermentation. We do a single vessel ferment, from start to finish. Been doing that for decades. With good results.

There are some who will state you need to rack the wort/beer into a second vessel. Totally not required.
 
Don't leave the beer in the fermenter too long. I corresponded with a homebrewer who left his beer in the fermenter for 6 months. He said that that still wasn't too long. YMMV
 
I've been reading some stuff on other forums and advised that secondary fermentation really isn't needed in homebrewing. What are others thoughts here? Trying to decide if I want to follow suit and not do the secondary and just leave it at one just running it a little longer.
For over 35 years I have been transferring to a secondary with no issues. For the first time I have two ales in a primary that I’m going to see how single stage works. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
 
Since most fermentations are over with in 3 to 4 days is the term secondary fermenter even valid. Maybe it's just a bright tank.

Either way, for the beers I've done, I've not found any issues that make me think I should have moved them to something else before bottling.

And since adding sugar to prime the carbonation of bottles is fermenting, then wouldn't the bottle be a secondary or tertiary fermenter? :cool:
 
It's entirely a function of what your process is. For bucket fermentation it's can be useful IMHO, but even that depends on how much trouble you remove and what you add during fermentation (dry hopping).
 
For over 35 years I have been transferring to a secondary with no issues. For the first time I have two ales in a primary that I’m going to see how single stage works. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
How did that turn out? I have a Saison in the primary at the moment that calls for a secondary fermentation but contemplating leaving it in the primary for another week and then bottle conditioning. I’ve done a ton of research and seems 50-50.
 
For over 35 years I have been transferring to a secondary with no issues. For the first time I have two ales in a primary that I’m going to see how single stage works. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
The single fermenter method is working for me either the same results as the two stage method.
 
When I do 5 gal batches I often will fill my 2.5 gal keg. The I then bottle the rest after attaching the wand to auto syphon hose. I use one domino dots sugar cube per bottle. It fits through bottle mouths and gets nice carbonation.
 
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