Should I consider a secondary?

[BrewForMe]

I bottled my first batch on Sunday and after a sample i decided that I can make beer, dang it was delicious! I will be starting my next batch this weekend and i am going to do an Irish Red. I am on a fairly tight budget and was wondering if it was worth it to use a secondary. If so, which type do you recommend. I have heard horror stories about glass carboys, but they look great being able to see the process without having to open them up. Another plastic bucket would be the most affordable for me, but there doesnt deem to be much of an excitement factor related to buying another bucket. When should i rack to a secondary, after week 1? and how long would you let an Irish red ferment in the secondary before bottling.

 

[mrbubbly]

i would do 2 weeks, just to let any floaties settle and let clear the beer out. then you could pitch your next batch on the yeast cake from the primary as well

 

[BrewKnurd]

I bottled my first batch on Sunday and after a sample i decided that I can make beer, dang it was delicious! I will be starting my next batch this weekend and i am going to do an Irish Red. I am on a fairly tight budget and was wondering if it was worth it to use a secondary. If so, which type do you recommend. I have heard horror stories about glass carboys, but they look great being able to see the process without having to open them up. Another plastic bucket would be the most affordable for me, but there doesnt deem to be much of an excitement factor related to buying another bucket. When should i rack to a secondary, after week 1? and how long would you let an Irish red ferment in the secondary before bottling.

You don't really need to rack to a secondary, so if you're on a tight budget, there's probably better places to spend your money. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/secondary-not-john-palmer-jamil-zainasheff-weigh-176837/

Additionally, there's not a whole lot of the process to see in a secondary, most of the interesting stuff is done by the time you'd transfer to a secondary. So the ability to "see the process" would be less of a factor for me in determining what type of secondary vessel to use, if any. A bigger factor would be minimizing the head space. When you transfer out of a primary, you're racking the beer out from under a layer of CO2 and into a vessel full of air. You're not offgassing CO2 nearly as quickly once you're in a secondary, so a large headspace means more air and therefore oxygen to oxidixe your beer.

 

[Captain Damage]

Do some searching and reading. This comes up about every thirty seconds around here, so there are dozens of threads on this. Most of us are only using secondaries when racking on to fruit, dry hopping or aging barley wine type high gravity beers. Many of us are even dry hopping in our primaries now. We've found that our beers come out best when given a long primary - i.e., 3-4 weeks. This is a change in brewing philosophy over just the past 3-5 years.

 

[Priemus]

Lucky you!

Took me 3 beers before they were drinkable, and 9 before they became good

But I started doing it to save money and cut corners wherever I could, Now I realise you get out what you put in. Plus im additcted to it now.

 

[JLem]

As mentioned above, most ales do not require a secondary (and, given the increased chance of oxidation and contamination with each transfer, most ales shouldn't be racked to a secondary). So, no need to rush out and throw money into another vessel.

Of course, if you are anything like most of us who have been home brewing for a while, you'll eventually end up with a few more buckets, a 6.5 gallon glass carboy, a couple of 3 gallon glass carboys, a half dozen 1 gallon glass jugs, and countless growlers and other assorted vessels. Hypothetically speaking, of course. Welcome to the obsession!

 

[Dougan]

Regardless of what side of the "secondary vs no secondary" debate you find yourself on, I think Irish Red is a style that is more likely to be fine with just the primary. It doesn't need to clear out or age. Beers that need to clear or age are the ones that some people think should get secondaried and some think shouldn't.

As always, just an opinion when it comes to secondary vs primary, but given the style, I think most people would agree.

 

[Shaneoco1981]

Yea, a standard strength irish red, (OG under 1.065), I would say just leave it in the primary for 2 to 3 weeks, take gravity readings after second week, if they stay the same for those 3 days, then bottle. If I were you, as opposed to buying a secondary, buy another primary bucket. That way you can have 2 batches going at once. ;-)

 

[ThePearsonFam]

Lucky you!

Took me 3 beers before they were drinkable, and 9 before they became good

Lucky you! I'm still trying to get to "Good". Only been brewing for 3 years...

 

[Shaneoco1981]

Lucky you! I'm still trying to get to "Good". Only been brewing for 3 years...

You haven't made a "good" beer in 3 years? I am sorry to hear that...

 

[BrewKnurd]

You haven't made a "good" beer in 3 years? I am sorry to hear that...

Maybe a really high threshold for what is considered "good"? I just started a couple months ago and think my first beer counted as good. don't think I would stick with brewing for 3 years if I didn't think anything I made was good.

 

[ThePearsonFam]

I've been pretty fortunate, actually... I've only had a couple I didn't consider "good" or "great".

 

[BrewForMe]

I was using the term good kinda loosely. It certainly tasted much better than I expected out of my first batch, definitely something I would call good, very drinkable and I cant wait to get to that part. Hopefully it remains the same or better after conditioning in the bottle.

Thank you all for the suggestions, i will save money and not worry about a carboy for now and i will search to see which purchase might be wiser as i grow in this obsession.