Slight problem here...

[Gtrman13]

Between my girlfriend and I, we pretty much drink our brew faster than we can make it! I'm thinking I may need to get a second primary and have two batches going at once. Maybe I'll upgrade my kegerator to two or three taps at some point too. So, how many primary fermenters does everyone have going at once? Just curious!

 

[lumpher]

don't secondary. get more primaries. most of us have more primaries, and very rarely secondary. you only need to secondary it if you're going to ferment it more than 2 months, and that doesn't seem like a problem you'll have. i have 3 primaries: 1 15g for 11-12g batches, and 2 5g primaries

 

[MattHollingsworth]

+1, don't secondary. I bottle after 3 weeks in primary. I generally brew twice a month and generally have 2 primaries full. I have 4 demijohn's for primary just in case and have 2 secondary demijohns that I use for beers I intend to age.

If you brew twice a month, batches of around 20 liters, then you end up with about 80 half lliter bottles (around a pint sized bottle, bigger than the 12 oz ones) per month. That's enough for me personally to feed myself and give away beers to friends or have friends over now and then.

 

[zanemoseley]

Or go to 10 gallon batches. I did and love it especially for brewing your favorite session beers. You still have the flexibility to brew experimental 5 gallon batches if you need to.

 

[smakudwn]

I have 5 primary's if you don't count the 2 5 gal carboys.

 

[Austinhomebrew]

Just get a much larger primary. Definately use a secondary. I have a 20 gallon primary I make 15 gallon batches in. I have a 2 foot wooden cube on wheels. Put the fermenter on it and when the fermentation is finished download to three 5 gallon carboys for secondary. It doesn't take much more time to make 15 gallons as it does 5 gallons.

Definately secondary. It is what the pros do. They do it for a reason.

Forrest

 

[Revvy]

I have about 11 fermenters of various sizes, from 1 gallon jugs, mr Beer fermenters, 3 gallon water bottles, buckets, carboys and former secondaries (rarely do I use a secondary). So I have a variety of sizes for all matter of brews, including smaller sized fermenters for test batches and contest beers.

When you brew a lot, and start to build a pipeline, you are used to waiting, because you have batches at different stages, fermenting, secondarying, lagering, bottle conditioning and drinking.

And you can't drink everything at once anyway. So stuff gets to mature enough. And you can have your beer at the peak of tastiness. I never drink anything younger than three weeks in the bottle, and a minimum of 4 weeks in primary. Some take longer.

If there's a break or gap in the pipeline, I don't cheat myself out of good beer by drinking young...I go buy some.

The last time I did a pipeline check was in June(and I haven't brewed since July due to health reasons) here's what I posted. But since this stuff with my heart happened. I haven't been drinking much. Everything but the Chocolate Mole Porter, the new years eve strong ale and the Date wine has been bottled. And is now drinkable.

This was shot and posted on may 10th. If I recall correctly everything but number 5 and 6 are now bottled and drinking.

Caption from when it was posted- My Fermentation Closet: #1 Grain test Pale Ale 1 (dry toasted) #2 German Apfelwein (hard cider @ 3 months) #3 Grain test Pale Ale 2 (soaked in sugar solution then toasted) # 4 Grain Test Pale Ale 3 (soaked in water then toasted) #5 1-gallon Date Wine #6 Old Ale Brewed on New Years, then oaked for a week and racked to a tertiary to bulk age).

Like I said most of that is already bottled.

Besides this I also have bottled a blonde ale that I am now drinking, that I split the batch in half, bottled one as is and racked the other half over peaches and lactose for my girlfriend, which is JUST drinkability now.

Also 7 weeks ago I brewed a new version of my Wit using the new carabrown malt and English Ginger orange marmalade. That I just started drinking this week as well.

In another week I am going to be bottling a new version of my Chocolate Mole Porter, that I brewed three weeks ago, the one that I won a Bronze Medal at the world expo of beer for the Spiced Herb Veg category this winter, and brewed again just for contests this summer.

I start vacation in another week, and usually manage to brew 2-3 batches during that time.

It just takes some patience and planing to have a pipeline going.

 

[509inc]

I usally have 2 pirmarys going and a third depending on kegging/bottling schedule.

 

[FromZwolle]

i've got about seven of various sizes, but only one 6.5 gallon, need another one of those. that way i can make anywhere from a 1 gallon to a 5.5 gallon batch at any time.

 

[mosquitocontrol]

I have 4 primaries and brew about 10 gallons every two weeks. If I need to brew more in a month I'll either secondary one or cut a week off primary and go straight to keg.

 

[tallybrewer]

Currently 4 primaries, but one is a loaner:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/b3QrqKCDkAyO2Tlopy3mWA?feat=directlink

 

[biochemedic]

Perhaps this is a discussion for another thread, but I love Dry Hops...for those of you that don't secondary, how do you dry hop? Do you put them right in the primary? Anything else different about that process when you aren't physically transferring the beer to another container?

 

[IrregularPulse]

Definately secondary. It is what the pros do. They do it for a reason.

Forrest

All due respect, there are lots of things the pros do for a reason that simply don't apply to our scale. I for one don't have a professional filtering system either, but make damn fine beer....with no secondaries.
Secondaries are for clearing, My beer comes out crystal clear after a 4 week primary and gelatin in the keg.

Jamil and Palmer's opinions about Secondaries:

John: But these days we don't recommend secondary transfer. Leave it in the primary, you know, a month. Today's fermentations are typically healthy enough that you are not going to get autolysis flavors or off-flavors from leaving the beer on the yeast for an extended period of time.

Jamil: And if you are using healthy yeast and the appropriate amount and the thing is... homebrew style fermentors..if you are using a carboy or plastic bucket which have that broad base when the yeast flocculate out they lay in a nice thin layer. When you're dealing with large, tall...one of the things you know people go "Well the commercial brewers they remove the yeast because it is gonna break down, die, and make the beer bad. We should be doing the same thing." That's where alot of this comes from. But the commerical brewers are working with 100 bbl fermenters that are very tall and put a lot of pressure on the yeast. The yeast are jammed into this little cone in the bottom and they are stacked very deep and there is a lot of heat buildup. The core of that yeast mass can be several degrees C higher than the rest of that yeast mass and it can actually cook the yeast and cause them to die faster and cause those problems with flavor and within a couple of days the viability of that yeast which the commercial brewers are going to reuse is going to drop 25%, 50% over a couple of days so they need to get that yeast out of there. You don't have that restriction as a homebrewer. You've got these broad fermenter bases that allow the yeast to be distributed evently. It's an advantage for cleaning up the beer. You have the advantage that the yeast don't break down as fast. You don't have as high a head pressure. There are a lot of advantages.

Perhaps this is a discussion for another thread, but I love Dry Hops...for those of you that don't secondary, how do you dry hop? Do you put them right in the primary? Anything else different about that process when you aren't physically transferring the beer to another container?

Just toss the hops into the primary or use a secondary in that case.

 

[Revvy]

Perhaps this is a discussion for another thread, but I love Dry Hops...for those of you that don't secondary, how do you dry hop? Do you put them right in the primary? Anything else different about that process when you aren't physically transferring the beer to another container?

That's been thoroughly answered in just about every thread on here about it.... including this one, that an prolly every other question you might have is asked and answered in it;

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/secondary-not-john-palmer-jamil-zainasheff-weigh-176837/

We really don't need to rehash, or beat any dead horses with secondary ort not debates, or questions in this thread, this is about pipelines and numbers of fermenters. (I for one am throroughly exhausted by the whole discussion and answering questins about it, since I've been doing it on here for 3 years......I figure I've written everything there is about it on here, 50 times over.)

 

[shortyjacobs]

4 primaries, I brew 20 gallons every 3 weeks in a big monster mash double batch weekend, usually. I have a fifth primary dedicated to Apfelwein, which has been going on 10 months now...

 

[ColonelForbin]

4 primaries, 2 secondaries. i like to brew about 4 times a month. this gives me about 40 beers a week which is just enough since i like to drink about 3 or 4 a day and give away about a 12 pack as gifts. i give away about 5 gallons of beer a month just to friends.

 

[wonderbread23]

I have one 6.5 gallon primary that gets new beer twice a month. After two weeks, I either keg or throw it in one of three 5 gallon carboys I own. I own 8 corny kegs which seems to be the bottle neck in my production since I like to keg, pressurize, and then cellar (since I make a lot of big beers). I'll also usually 'secondary' in the serving vessel (corny) unless it involves dryhops.

 

[maxamuus]

Recently doubled my production capacity.

2 8 Gallon fermenters and 1 5 gallon glass carboy for the Apfelwein or assorted secondary. Still thinking i need more buckets

 

[billvon]

Definately secondary. It is what the pros do. They do it for a reason.

Agreed, but those reasons generally don't apply to us. (We don't need to free up a 300bbl fermentor within four days.)

 

[Gtrman13]

Wow, some of you guys are putting out quite a lot of brew! Maybe one day I'll be on that scale. For now, I decided against a secondary carboy and to go ahead and get another fermenting bucket. The way I see it, I can secondary in a keg.