In the kit I have it just says to mix the sugar mixture with the beer into a bottling bucket. From there it goes straight to the bottles where it should age 3 weeks before you can drink it. Is this what I should do? Can I just leave it in a secondary for 3 weeks and then bottle?
Secondary
- Thread starter mworkman
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you have to let it sit in the bottles for a while, unless you like your beer flat.
In a big fermenter, the carbonation produced by the fermentation just escapes from the beer and out through the airlock. But, once you put it in the bottles and cap them, that CO2 has nowhere to go and it stayes dissolved in the brew, giving you that carbonation you probably want.
-walker
In a big fermenter, the carbonation produced by the fermentation just escapes from the beer and out through the airlock. But, once you put it in the bottles and cap them, that CO2 has nowhere to go and it stayes dissolved in the brew, giving you that carbonation you probably want.
-walker
cgravier
Well-Known Member
mworkman said:
you can leave it in the secondary as long as you want, but once you put the priming sugar in you should bottle right away, or you will loose all that co2.
No beer really "NEEDS" a secondary, but almost all beers benefit from using one. It helps the beer clarify and makes it an overall cleaner beverage (taste and appearance).
The use of a secondary is personal choice.
My first dozen or so batches used only a primary fermenter, then into the bottling bucket with the sugar and immediately into the bottles.
-walker
The use of a secondary is personal choice.
My first dozen or so batches used only a primary fermenter, then into the bottling bucket with the sugar and immediately into the bottles.
-walker
Thanks, I might as well use a secondary being that I have one. (5 gal bottle). I assume that you still need an airlock even tho' fermentation will have been done for a few days. I suppose you could just stick a ballon on there.Walker said:
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cgravier
Well-Known Member
mworkman said:
i would recommend you drop any beer into a secondary, but of course you dont have too, you dont even need another bucket for bottling, ive bottled more than a few batches straight from my secondary, (just pour the sugar/water into the carboy, and bottle) but i wouldnt recomend that either...
mworkman said:
Well... if you've got a carboy, you might as well use it!
And, yes, you will need some sort of airlock (or balloon) on the secondary. When you rack the beer into it, you will knock loose some dissolved carbon dioxide. If you have no where for that gas to go, you'll pop the top off the carboy due to the build up of pressure.
I'm guessing that you have a bucket with a spigot and a glass carboy in your set-up? And you are using the bucket as your primary fermenter?
If so you almost HAVE to use the secondary, because you'll need to re-use the bucket at bottling time so that the bottles can be filled from the spigot, but you don't want all the yeast sediment in there when you bottle.... thus the beer has to be moved out of the bucket, the bucket cleaned of sediment, and then the beer has to be put back into the bucket with the priming sugar for bottling.
-walker
Walker.. I have a big bucket that I will use for fermenting and a big glass container which I guess is called a carboy. The bucket doesn't have a spigot on it. Do I need a spigot? I was thinking I could just pour the beer from the secondary into a pitcher or something and then fill the bottles.
Ouch... no bottling bucket?
You'll probably want to purchase one (or buy a spigot and drill a hole in your current bucket to attach it, about an inch or two off the bottom of the bucket.)
You want to avoid pouring beer after fermentation has begun. This will introduce oxygen into the beer and cause it to go stale prematurely. I'd steer clear of the pitcher and pouring.
If you don't have the time or $ to buy the bottling bucket or spigot, you'll probably want to use your siphon to fill the bottles straight from the secondary. This might get messy, but your beer will be in better shape.
If you have not read it yet, check out http://www.howtobrew.com. Palmer covers a lot of the basics and describes the gear well.
-walker
You'll probably want to purchase one (or buy a spigot and drill a hole in your current bucket to attach it, about an inch or two off the bottom of the bucket.)
You want to avoid pouring beer after fermentation has begun. This will introduce oxygen into the beer and cause it to go stale prematurely. I'd steer clear of the pitcher and pouring.
If you don't have the time or $ to buy the bottling bucket or spigot, you'll probably want to use your siphon to fill the bottles straight from the secondary. This might get messy, but your beer will be in better shape.
If you have not read it yet, check out http://www.howtobrew.com. Palmer covers a lot of the basics and describes the gear well.
-walker
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