Thoughts on Secondary Fermenting

[masonsjax]

I do this often. I put 2.5 to 3 oz table sugar in the keg, then rack the beer in. Seal the lid, purge the lid a few times like normal, and store the keg somewhere warm for 2-3 weeks. It should be very close to perfect carbonation once chilled back down. Sitting on gas at serving pressure will fine tune it. That's it.

 

[govner1]

Can you walk me through your priming process for the keg? I think I want to try this on my current batch.


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I use .75 oz/ gal. of priming malt in darker beers or the same amount/gal of priming sugar in paler brews.
I boil the priming malt/sugar in 2 cups of water for 4-5 minutes then chill the pot in a bowl of ice.
Next I pour it into a sanitized keg. Purge the keg of O2 w/ CO2.
Rack your beer into the keg then seal the keg w/ CO2 to prevent leaks.
I let it sit at room temp for two weeks then move to my kegerator to chill 2-3 days. This lets the beer absorb the CO2 that's been created. I also hook up the CO2 line at serving pressure at the same time.


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[Kevin-K]

Thanks for the tips! Can't wait to try it!


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[masonsjax]

You'll need to pay attention to the headspace in the keg too. If you fill it too high, you could overcarb. I usually fill to just below the seam on my kegs with good results. You might want to go more conservative with priming sugar or not fill to the rim until you experiment a little bit.

 

[govner1]

Thanks for the tips! Can't wait to try it!


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Another note: I shortened my dip tubes by about 1/2" and added a filter/screen to the ends as well. This helps avoid sucking yeast residue into your serving line.

 

[aqualung23]

Here's my $.02. I don't like to take a bunch of gravity readings, because you lose beer, and I try to open my primary as infrequently as possible. I take one at about 10 days, and another at 14. If they are the same, I bottle. If not, I take another in 2-3 more days and if it's the same as the last one, I bottle. There's no need to take reading over several consecutive days unless you're really in a hurry to bottle.

 

[mrboz]

Thanks for the input BigFloyd. Is it safe to say that waiting longer can not hurt the batch? I know the instructions from the kit IPA says 5-7 days but I'd rather wait longer and not rush the batch.

Is it standard to wait that long (2 weeks) or is the constant gravity reading (over a few days time) the green light to move to bottling? Thanks for the help everyone.

My opinion is that patience will pay great dividends. I have taken to giving my beers at least three weeks in primary, which includes 3-4 days d-rest at a few degrees higher temperature after about two weeks (note that time estimates are rules of thumb, you need to take hydro readings to determine if attenuation has stopped). While, most of your fermentation will be complete after 7-10 days as folks are saying, the d-rest and additional time give the yeast an opportunity to clean up some of the off-flavors that occur during fermentation. A lot of this does happen during bottle conditioning, but I like to know that I'm putting pretty well conditioned beer into the bottle.

As for secondary fermentation - folks have nailed it as to the evolving opinions on HBT ... generally not necessary unless you plan to do some dry hopping or flavor additions, or unless you are doing a big beer that will need to condition for months in the carboy - then you might want to get it off old yeast at some point in the process (and even this is debated by folks).

 

[masonsjax]

Once you dial in your process, gravity readings are much less important. At first though, you'll want to check often enough to be certain. After hitting the estimates right on for about 40 batches in a row, I stopped checking altogether. I've probably made 250 batches since then and checked gravity on maybe 2 or 3 when I had reason to suspect something was amiss.

 

[Puddlethumper]

So do any of you experienced keggers see any problem with combining the process of cold crashing with carbonation in the keg?

For example, I have batch of common bitters that will be ready to cold crash later this week. I'm thinking I may just move the beer from the primary to the keg, add 10-12 psi of co2 and put the keg into the keezer at 40F. When the beer is carbbed up properly it will also have been cold crashed. The first blast of beer will have some junk in it, but it seems to me the rest should be just fine.