Thoughts on racking to secondary

[boomtown25]

I have always avoided doing this for fear of oxydation risk, but read today that letting beer sit on dying yeast could cause off flavors. So I got to thinking what may be a safe way to lower risk of oxydation: Could you take a clean carboy (sanitized of course) and get one of those "air cans" that are used to spray off keyboards and displace any oxygen in the transferee carboy? I really don't know if it is actually CO2 in those cans, but I would assume its not oxygen. Just a thought.

 

[Revvy]

You just ready today 30 year old outdated information. You haven't maybe noticed the millions of threads everyday discussing long primaries vs secondaries?

There's been a shift in belief over the past few years, now most of us leave our beers in primary for a month rather than rack to a secondary, and find our beers are better for being on the yeast that time. And clearer.

You're going by outdated information.

Fermenting the beer is just a part of what the yeast do. If you leave the beer alone, they will go back and clean up the byproducts of fermentation that often lead to off flavors. That's why many brewers skip secondary and leave our beers alone in primary for a month. It leaves plenty of time for the yeast to ferment, clean up after themselves and then fall out, leaving our beers crystal clear, with a tight yeast cake.

This is the latest recommendation, it is the same one many of us have been giving for several years on here.

Tom from Michigan asks:
I have a few questions about secondary fermentations. I've read both pros and cons for 2nd fermentations and it is driving me crazy what to do. One, are they necessary for lower Gravity beers?
Two, what is the dividing line between low gravity and high gravity beers? Is it 1.060 and higher?
Three, I have an American Brown Ale in the primary right now, a SG of 1.058, Should I secondary ferment this or not?
Your advice is appreciated, thanks for all you do!

Allen from New York asks:
John, please talk about why or why not you would NOT use a secondary fermenter (bright tank?) and why or why not a primary only fermentation is a good idea. In other words, give some clarification or reason why primary only is fine, versus the old theory of primary then secondary normal gravity ale fermentations.

Palmer answers:
These are good questions – When and why would you need to use a secondary fermenter? First some background – I used to recommend racking a beer to a secondary fermenter. My recommendation was based on the premise that (20 years ago) larger (higher gravity) beers took longer to ferment completely, and that getting the beer off the yeast reduced the risk of yeast autolysis (ie., meaty or rubbery off-flavors) and it allowed more time for flocculation and clarification, reducing the amount of yeast and trub carryover to the bottle. Twenty years ago, a homebrewed beer typically had better flavor, or perhaps less risk of off-flavors, if it was racked off the trub and clarified before bottling. Today that is not the case.

The risk inherent to any beer transfer, whether it is fermenter-to-fermenter or fermenter-to-bottles, is oxidation and staling. Any oxygen exposure after fermentation will lead to staling, and the more exposure, and the warmer the storage temperature, the faster the beer will go stale.

Racking to a secondary fermenter used to be recommended because staling was simply a fact of life – like death and taxes. But the risk of autolysis was real and worth avoiding – like cholera. In other words, you know you are going to die eventually, but death by cholera is worth avoiding.

But then modern medicine appeared, or in our case, better yeast and better yeast-handling information. Suddenly, death by autolysis is rare for a beer because of two factors: the freshness and health of the yeast being pitched has drastically improved, and proper pitching rates are better understood. The yeast no longer drop dead and burst like Mr. Creosote from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life when fermentation is complete – they are able to hibernate and wait for the next fermentation to come around. The beer has time to clarify in the primary fermenter without generating off-flavors. With autolysis no longer a concern, staling becomes the main problem. The shelf life of a beer can be greatly enhanced by avoiding oxygen exposure and storing the beer cold (after it has had time to carbonate).

Therefore I, and Jamil and White Labs and Wyeast Labs, do not recommend racking to a secondary fermenter for ANY ale, except when conducting an actual second fermentation, such as adding fruit or souring. Racking to prevent autolysis is not necessary, and therefore the risk of oxidation is completely avoidable. Even lagers do not require racking to a second fermenter before lagering. With the right pitching rate, using fresh healthy yeast, and proper aeration of the wort prior to pitching, the fermentation of the beer will be complete within 3-8 days (bigger = longer). This time period includes the secondary or conditioning phase of fermentation when the yeast clean up acetaldehyde and diacetyl. The real purpose of lagering a beer is to use the colder temperatures to encourage the yeast to flocculate and promote the precipitation and sedimentation of microparticles and haze.

So, the new rule of thumb: don’t rack a beer to a secondary, ever, unless you are going to conduct a secondary fermentation.

This was confirmed on a March episode of Brew Strong where John and Jamil talk about how secondary fermentation is an outdated homebrewing technique. John even says that the information in the 1st edition of How to Brew (the web version) is no longer relevant.

John: And unfortunately I'm an perpetuator of the myth at HowtoBrew.com. The 1st edition talks about the benefits of transferring the beer off the yeast.

Jamil: Well that was the popular way of doing things. But that was what, the 1st edition? Stop getting the thing off the internet. Buy yourself the 3rd addition copy and get the updated information.

John: As we've gotten more educated on how much good healthy yeast you need for optimum fermentation the advice that we used to give 20 years ago has changed. 10 years ago, 20 years ago, homebrewers were using with a single packet of dry yeast that was taped to the top of the can. There weren't as many liquid yeast cultures available.

Jamil: People didn't make starters either.

John: Right. So the whole health and vitality of yeast was different back then compared to know. Back then it made sense. You had weaker yeast that had finished fermentation that were more susceptible to autolysis and breaking down. Now that is not the case. The bar of homebrewing has risen to where we are able to make beer that has the same robustness as professional beer. We've gotten our techniques and understanding of what makes a good fermentation up to that level, so you don't need to transfer the beer off the yeast to avoid autolysis like we used to recommend.

Jamil: Unless you are going to do long term at warm temperatures, but even then we are talking over a month. I thought about this as well and I think one of the reasons autolysis....and the fact that people were using weak yeast in inappropriate amounts and the transfer would add some oxygen to it which would help attenuate a few more points. I think that was part of the deal why transferring was considered appropriate years ago.

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.

THIS is where the latest discussion and all your questions answered.
We have multiple threads about this all over the place, like this one,so we really don't need to go over it again, all the info you need is here;

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

he autolysis from prolong yeast contact has fallen by the wayside, in fact yeast contact is now seen as a good thing.

All my beers sit a minimum of 1 month in the primary.
You'll find that more and more recipes these days do not advocate moving to a secondary at all, but mention primary for a month, which is starting to reflect the shift in brewing culture that has occurred in the last 4 years, MOSTLY because of many of us on here, skipping secondary, opting for longer primaries, and writing about it. Recipes in BYO have begun stating that in their magazine. But after the Byo/Basic brewing experiment, they started reflecting it in their recipes.

You can choose to secondary or not, that's your choice, BUT not secondarying will NOT harm your beer.

 

[Dinomyte]

I have always avoided doing this for fear of oxydation risk, but read today that letting beer sit on dying yeast could cause off flavors. So I got to thinking what may be a safe way to lower risk of oxydation: Could you take a clean carboy (sanitized of course) and get one of those "air cans" that are used to spray off keyboards and displace any oxygen in the transferee carboy? I really don't know if it is actually CO2 in those cans, but I would assume its not oxygen. Just a thought.

I would hesitate to use "Canned Air" since most of them have a bittering agent added to them to prevent huffing. Would hate for that to contaminate your brew.

 

[Revvy]

When yeast autloyze, the yeast cells rupture, much like we do if we develop peritonitis and our intestines rupture. Think the monster that bursts out of the guy's stomach in the original Aliens.

But as Palmer and Jamil have said it is a RARE occurance these days that yeast actually dies anymore, let alone actually autolyses. It just goes dormant when the job is done and waits for the next round of sugar (much like when we pitch on top of the old yeast cake- which even some commercial brewers do for multiple generations.) The cells rarely rupture and die off.

Yeast ARE cannibals, but that's not a bad thing at all. In fact it is quite common to put old yeast, bread yeast, or "yeast hulls" into the boil, or into the fermenter to help the yeast, especially during high gravity brews. It works as an "appetite stimulant" to get them going.

It works really well for stuck fermentations.

You can buy "special" versions of this from any lhbs, but in reality dumping any old or new yeast into your boil kettle works just as well.

From BYO Magazine

Yeast hulls (sometimes called "yeast ghosts") are essentially yeast skeletons. They’re the freeze-dried empty shells of yeast cells that have had the water and other liquid elements sucked out of them. Sounds a little gruesome, but yeast hulls provide extra nutrients that are critical to a fermentation.

Thing to realize is Dead yeast and autolysed yeast ARE NOT the same thing. Not every dead yeast has it's "intestines" exploded, just like we humans don't all develop peritonitis. It's rare in humans, and it's also rare these days, since yeast is much healthier to begin with. It's not like 30 years ago (when most of those opinions that you espouse about autolysis originated from) when our hobby was still illegal, and there wasn't a lot of yeast available to us. The yeast used in hobby brewing was usually in cake form, which came from Germany and England in hot cargo ships and may have sat on a store shelf for a long time....or the brewer just used bread yeast.

Palmer even said this in the broadcast I quote from above-

So the whole health and vitality of yeast was different back then compared to know. Back then it made sense. You had weaker yeast that had finished fermentation that were more susceptible to autolysis and breaking down. Now that is not the case. The bar of homebrewing has risen to where we are able to make beer that has the same robustness as professional beer. We've gotten our techniques and understanding of what makes a good fermentation up to that level, so you don't need to transfer the beer off the yeast to avoid autolysis like we used to recommend.

Yeast in the 21st century is much healthier to begin with, and is less prone to have issues like their cells autolysing....just like our own health tends to be better these days.

 

[Brew_4iT]

I kind of wondered about this myself, recently I racked some of my beer into a smaller bucket to cold crash easier and because of kegging space. It only filled half the volume of the bucket and was wondering about the oxygen present. I figured that the amount of Co2 in the beer would drive off the oxygen in the bucket but not sure? I had it sit a few days first before It cold crashed so maybe the residual sugars present and yeast would give off just enough CO2 to drive off the oxygen as well?

 

[shawnbou]

I rarely rack beer, for the reasons Revvy covered very well above (and elsewhere on the board). But when I rack mead to a carboy, or when I rack beer for an extended rest, I use Private Preserve to help prevent oxidation.

To the OP - you can use Private Preserve to do basically what you're trying to do with canned air. It's a wine preservative that's basically just a mix of CO2, argon, and maybe one other heavier-than-air gas. It's available from many liquor stores.

A few sprays of that onto the surface of the liquid, after racking, blankets it to protect it from the air in the headspace. So even though the yeast is mostly done and there's not a lot of CO2 coming out of the brew, there's a blanket of gas on top protecting the beer the same way it does in primary.

 

[Revvy]

I rarely rack beer, for the reasons Revvy covered very well above (and elsewhere on the board). But when I rack mead to a carboy, or when I rack beer for an extended rest, I use Private Preserve to help prevent oxidation.

To the OP - you can use Private Preserve to do basically what you're trying to do with canned air. It's a wine preservative that's basically just a mix of CO2, argon, and maybe one other heavier-than-air gas. It's available from many liquor stores.

A few sprays of that onto the surface of the liquid, after racking, blankets it to protect it from the air in the headspace. So even though the yeast is mostly done and there's not a lot of CO2 coming out of the brew, there's a blanket of gas on top protecting the beer the same way it does in primary.

Not that I've ever been paranoid enough to feel the need to do it, BUT that's an awesome tip.

 

[Clann]

Sure are busy today, Revvy

 

[Revvy]

Sure are busy today, Revvy

Bored at work, and stuck here for another 4 hours......

 

[boomtown25]

Damn, Revvy, I feel like I just got bent over by Yoda. Checklist for today- forget about secondary forever- check.

 

[Maxkling]

Damn, Revvy, I feel like I just got bent over by Yoda. Checklist for today- forget about secondary forever- check.

Nah he was just stating some information. I secondary rarely, but I still do it. Dry hopping, foreign additions, or something that I want to clear with gelatin. Other than that if its under 1060 3 to 4 week in primary. If its over 1060 then 4 to 6, and if it a really high gravity, its there til I feel froggy. Could be a month and half or 2 months.

 

[boomtown25]

I know, I'm just kidding.

 

[wolfman_48442]

I normally secondary if I'm going to age for more than a month. I just put a wee heavy into secondary for a 3 month nap.
Does anybody leave their beer on the yeast for more than a month with no ill effects?

 

[Revvy]

I normally secondary if I'm going to age for more than a month. I just put a wee heavy into secondary for a 3 month nap.
Does anybody leave their beer on the yeast for more than a month with no ill effects?

5.5 months and a bjcp judge friend of mine loves that beer. I've got a beer that I brewed in may that I haven't had a chance to bottle, and I tasted it a couple weeks ago and it was fine.

Some have done a year.

If I'm planning to bulk age, then I secondary, but life get's in the way sometimes, and if that's the case I don't worry about it.

(I'm writing this from Fraser, MI as well. The corner of Masonic and Kelly.

 

[kirkosaurus]

Revvy, what you recommend doing for the addition of chocolate and vanilla extract to a chocolate stout that called for those to be put into the secondary? If I just add it to the primary I'm afraid it will just get lost in the yeast. If I rack on top of the extract in the secondary it will mix better with the beer.
My chocolate stout has been in the primary for 2 weeks now, BTW.

 

[Revvy]

Revvy, what you recommend doing for the addition of chocolate and vanilla extract to a chocolate stout that called for those to be put into the secondary? If I just add it to the primary I'm afraid it will just get lost in the yeast. If I rack on top of the extract in the secondary it will mix better with the beer.
My chocolate stout has been in the primary for 2 weeks now, BTW.

For that I WOULD rack to a secondary myself.

 

[kh54s10]

Forgetting the argument of secondary or not, Read the label on your "air can"!!!!!! Mine says DANGER extremely flammable . I would guess there is something in there besides co2!!!!!!!!

 

[Delaney]

When you mention that you do not rack to a secondary, do you bottle directly out of the primary? Or do you siphon to a clean vessel prior to bottling?

Whenever I've bottled directly out of the primary I end up disturbing the sediment more-so than if I transfer the beer to another container first.

 

[motleybrews]

Transfer to a bottling bucket. Rack onto the priming sugar

 

[Revvy]

Whenever I've bottled directly out of the primary I end up disturbing the sediment more-so than if I transfer the beer to another container first.

Why would you ever consider doing this?

The problem with bottling from a primary or secondary instead of using a bottling bucket, is that since you have patiently gone and let your beer settle and clear, in order to mix the priming solution and beer effectively, you would have to stir it in the carboy which would a) kick up all that nice sediment you have patiently let fall, b) possibly oxydize the beer.

It really defeats the purpose of both a long primary/no secondary or a secondary if you have to stir up all the nice sediment you patiently waited to settle just so you can have consistent carbonation.

 

[osagedr]

Over/under on remaining number of "Should I use a secondary?" threads before Revvy's head explodes: 10,000.

Expected date of explosion at current rate of new threads introduced on this topic: March 2014.

 

[triletter]

A cheap and simple way to avoid the oxidation issue (should you choose to secondary) is to use the CO2 cartridges you find at any bike shop. They are cheap and easy to use and since CO2 is heavier than "normal" air couple of squirts and you have an environment similar to yeast CO2.

 

[AR-Josh]

I sometimes like to secondary just to get a cleaner keg. Usually a secondary helps get rid of some of the crap that would make it into my kegs. Then result in a first pour that you could chew.

 

[Scooby_Brew]

It all depends if you are able to rack from the primary straight to the keg or bottlig bucket without disturbing the yeat cake on the bottom. The other day this guy was telling me how he doesn't use a secondary because it's useless, but he had about an inch of yeast cake in his bottles. I'm all for skipping the secondary, but only if you are able to rack the beer off the primary and keep it totaly clear.

 

[ETCS]

As a side note...I had a Mead that sat in the primary for 13 months, turns out, it was the best batch that I've made.

 

[Brew_4iT]

It all depends if you are able to rack from the primary straight to the keg or bottlig bucket without disturbing the yeat cake on the bottom. The other day this guy was telling me how he doesn't use a secondary because it's useless, but he had about an inch of yeast cake in his bottles. I'm all for skipping the secondary, but only if you are able to rack the beer off the primary and keep it totaly clear.

Thats the problem I ran into in the past. That's why now my process is to rack to smaller buckets (easier to fit in fridge). Then cold crash for a few days before siphoning off, I believe it helps with the taste a lot especially since most of the yeast fall out of suspension.

It seems to dissipate, but beers in the past where I don't do this even after the first couple beers will have a nose of yeast instead of hops or malt. I do tend to ferment at higher temps 72 deg f but still..

I haven't noticed any ill effects yet of oxidization, I figure the amount of co2 present in the beer is enough to drive off most of the oxygen. I would only use food grade co2 cartridges though, I buy them a lot for my mini kegs (reused home draught kegs).

 

[Revvy]

I've never had that problem whatsoever.

This is my yeastcake for my Sri Lankin Stout that sat in primary for 5 weeks. Notice how tight the yeast cake is? None of that got racked over to my bottling bucket. And the beer is extremely clear.

That little bit of beer to the right is all of the 5 gallons that DIDN'T get vaccumed off the surface of the tight trub. Note how clear it is, there's little if any floaties in there.

When I put 5 gallons in my fermenter, I tend to get 5 gallons into bottles. The cake itself is like cement, it's about an inch thick and very, very dense, you can't just tilt your bucket and have it fall out. I had to use water pressure to get it to come out.

This is the last little bit of the same beer in the bottling bucket, this is the only sediment that made it though and that was done on purpose, when I rack I always make sure to rub the autosiphon across the bottom of the primary to make sure there's plenty of yeast in suspension to carb the beer, but my bottles are all crystal clear and have little sediment in them.

Half the time I forget to use moss, and you can't tell the difference in clarity.

I get the barest hint of sediment in my bottles....just enough for the yeast to have done the job of carbonating the beer.