To Secondary or Not? John Palmer and Jamil Zainasheff Weigh In

[rustynuts]

Rootbeer for the kids...now there's a great idea! They could have a frosty mug of rootbeer while I have a frosty mug of imperial stout

 

[Revvy]

It seems the consensus here is that a secondary is not necessary.
But from what I've gathered it also not necessary to leave it in the primary for a month or longer, which seems to be what a lot of people
here advocate. I understand giving the yeast time to "clean up", but if it's done fermenting and you've given it time so you don't taste any off flavors like diacetyl that the yeast will take care of isn't it ready to keg or bottle? Isn't arbitrarily telling a new brewer to let it sit in primary at least x weeks and don't drink any for at least x amount of weeks just as wrong as the rule of 1 week primary, 2 weeks secondary, and 3 weeks in bottle?
I just think because you can leave it the primary for x amount of weeks or months doesn't mean you should.

Well, I don't know where you are getting YOUR information from, but most of us who have been leaving our beer in prmary for a month, would say that you are wrong; that leaving our beer on the yeast for a month has led to a VAST improvement in our beers. In terms of clarity, in terms of clearing up those by products of fermentation, and in terms of an overall crispness to our beers.

We're not ARBITRARILY doing it, we are doing it because it makes our beers BETTER.

It may be hard for you to grasp, maybe because you are new to brewing and the thought of not having your beer to drink immediately is painful. But it's not some plot by the experienced brewers to torture the newbs by holding their beer back.

We do it because we've found that our beers are better this way. I've started placing in contests, and inevitably my scoresheets have comments from the judges about the visual clarity, and the CLEAN FLAVOR PROFILE of them. And I don't do anything special to my beers, except leave them in primary for a month.

We've already done the arguments against this, we aught flack and arguments like your for the years we have been doing this. And people citing Palmer and Jamil and others as to why this doesn't work, all the while we have been consistently getting great results by doing this.

And finally the folks in the larger brewing community, like Jamil, and Palmer, the podcasts and even the magazines are starting to realize that they passed on "common wisdom" based, I believed on the yeasts of the old days, that was crappy. And now they have to protect their egos and their cred as brewing gurus, so rather than just saying that they may have been wrong they are backpeddling a bit and saying "well maybe it's ok for homebrewers, but the pressures of a commercial vat of beer is different and THAT'S where we got the info from."

I don't know if that's true or not, and I don't care, all I know is that it works for our beers. And that's why we tell the new brewers to hold off awhile. It's not arbitrary, and we're not saying it because we think it just doesn't harm our beer, and therefore it's OK.

NO we advocate it because IT MAKES BETTER BEER.

 

[bootney]

Would this primary fermentation process be applied to lagers as well?

 

[Revvy]

Would this primary fermentation process be applied to lagers as well?

Do you mean leaving lagers in primary for a month, or lagering in primary?

I leave my lagers in primary for a month, then rack to a secondary for the several months of lagering.

 

[remilard]

It seems the consensus here is that a secondary is not necessary.
But from what I've gathered it also not necessary to leave it in the primary for a month or longer, which seems to be what a lot of people
here advocate. I understand giving the yeast time to "clean up", but if it's done fermenting and you've given it time so you don't taste any off flavors like diacetyl that the yeast will take care of isn't it ready to keg or bottle? Isn't arbitrarily telling a new brewer to let it sit in primary at least x weeks and don't drink any for at least x amount of weeks just as wrong as the rule of 1 week primary, 2 weeks secondary, and 3 weeks in bottle?
I just think because you can leave it the primary for x amount of weeks or months doesn't mean you should.

I agree with you FWIW. While I think you can certainly get away with 4 weeks out of laziness, IMO if you need 4 weeks in the primary to correct some off flavor you made a bad beer in the first place.

Within a reasonable amount of time after fermentation is complete, I like to get the beer cold and in an oxygen free environment (a keg).

My primaries are 1-2 weeks for ales (in most cases the 2 week ones could be 8-12 days but I am lazy and mostly do beer chores on weekends) and 2-3 weeks for lagers. I occasionally make an acceptable beer with this protocol.

In any case any manner of techniques have resulted in good beer and any manner of techniques have resulted in fantastic beer. Everybody has a desired outcome and everybody has a level of effort they are willing to put it. As such, every thoughtful brewer will arrive upon a set of techniques that he is happy with.

 

[bootney]

I was curious if the lagering was done in the primary as well.

 

[Revvy]

I was curious if the lagering was done in the primary as well.

A couple of folks have said on here that they lager in primary...I don't know if I would want to go 3-6 months in primary, even in the cold.

 

[bdleedahl]

bd, don't know what kind of primary you're using up the road there in SK but if it is a typical bucket with a lid, get a bung, place an airlock into it, grab a pen, place bung on top of bucket lid, trace outline, grab drill with a hole-cutter/saw, drill (with lid off/no beer in primary of course, hahaha). Insert airlock.

yes it just a bucket with a lid... and i've considered just drilling a hole and throwing an airlock in, but that would be pointless since the bucket would not be any closer to being airtight around the seal anyways...

so to bump my own post, does not having an airtight fermenter with an airlock affect a month long primary? ... I am kinda looking for some insight from Revvy here haha... (I asked the same question a few posts back too)

 

[Revvy]

yes it just a bucket with a lid... and i've considered just drilling a hole and throwing an airlock in, but that would be pointless since the bucket would not be any closer to being airtight around the seal anyways...

so to bump my own post, does not having an airtight fermenter with an airlock affect a month long primary? ... I am kinda looking for some insight from Revvy here haha... (I asked the same question a few posts back too)

No fermenter is ever airtight...having an airlock doesn't make it so despite the name. An airlock is a valve, or a vent, it's one way. It may keep oxygen from getting in, but it is always letting stuff out.

You don't want a fermenter to be airtight, unless it was made of metal, and even they have release valves to keep from exploding. There's a great video in the tv series "life after people" that shows what would happen at AHB in St Louis a couple days after the power goes out, after people vanish. The heat of a St Louis summer causes the yeast to go nuts and pressure to build It's quite a big explosion. To me a good way to get rid of Bud Light if you ask me.

If you had a truly airtight vessel like a bucket WITHOUT an airlock, you would more than likely end up with a ceiling full of your precious brew, the pressure would eventually blow the lid.

SO having said that I really don't get your question. I primary in my buckets for a month, all the time.You don't want an airtight vessel.

There's a cushion of co2 protecting your beer, if you don't open the fermenter. I really never disturb them in the month I'm letting them go, so once it's voided out the 02 with the initial growth of co2, all that headspace is filled with co2, so it's pretty much covered in a big blanket until you open it.

 

[user 19629]

I agree with you FWIW. While I think you can certainly get away with 4 weeks out of laziness, IMO if you need 4 weeks in the primary to correct some off flavor you made a bad beer in the first place.

Within a reasonable amount of time after fermentation is complete, I like to get the beer cold and in an oxygen free environment (a keg).

My primaries are 1-2 weeks for ales (in most cases the 2 week ones could be 8-12 days but I am lazy and mostly do beer chores on weekends) and 2-3 weeks for lagers. I occasionally make an acceptable beer with this protocol.

In any case any manner of techniques have resulted in good beer and any manner of techniques have resulted in fantastic beer. Everybody has a desired outcome and everybody has a level of effort they are willing to put it. As such, every thoughtful brewer will arrive upon a set of techniques that he is happy with.

you said it better then I did
thanks

 

[eanmcnulty]

I like the idea of keeping my beer in primary for 3-4 weeks. It makes better beer AND I get to be lazy.

 

[bdleedahl]

Revvy thanks for answering...

I suppose I didn't realize that the blanket of CO2 will easily sit on top of the beer for a good month as long as it is not opened, I figured that since it will never be perfectly still inside that some would leak out even though the CO2 is heavier than air. Does cracking the lid a but really cause the blanket of CO2 to disappear that fast then?

 

[markcurling]

You have to take this 'CO2 blanket' with a pinch of salt. In a non-airtight system, the air above the beer may be slightly higher in CO2 than elsewhere, but certainly nowhere near 100% CO2 because of the basic laws of diffusion. If you cause air currents around the top of the fermenter then any CO2 blanket will certainly blow away, but it's effect is not life-changing.

If water is flat and undisturbed (with no 'CO2 blanket'), given the physics of the pressures and equilibrium at room temperature, oxygen will only diffuse into it slowly (instead of yeast, try keeping fish in an non-aerated, undisturbed fish bowl with a small opening, they will fairly quickly begin to suffer!). The flow rate of oxygen into your beer without a CO2 blanket would certainly not be enough to allow the yeast to respire aerobically, hence why many people successfully use open fermentation. However, obviously bacterial infection is another aspect of keeping air currents out...

Remember that if you read 'CO2 blanket' as 'all-encompassing heavy layer of pure carbon dioxide' then you have much greater things to worry about - given the current global warming crisis we all would have drowned in a blanket of the stuff covering the surface of the earth many years ago!

Wow, a couple of homebrews and I start spurting science, I hope if I read this in the morning it makes sense...

 

[user 19629]

Well, I don't know where you are getting YOUR information from, but most of us who have been leaving our beer in prmary for a month, would say that you are wrong; that leaving our beer on the yeast for a month has led to a VAST improvement in our beers. In terms of clarity, in terms of clearing up those by products of fermentation, and in terms of an overall crispness to our beers.

We're not ARBITRARILY doing it, we are doing it because it makes our beers BETTER.

It may be hard for you to grasp, maybe because you are new to brewing and the thought of not having your beer to drink immediately is painful. But it's not some plot by the experienced brewers to torture the newbs by holding their beer back.

We do it because we've found that our beers are better this way. I've started placing in contests, and inevitably my scoresheets have comments from the judges about the visual clarity, and the CLEAN FLAVOR PROFILE of them. And I don't do anything special to my beers, except leave them in primary for a month.

We've already done the arguments against this, we aught flack and arguments like your for the years we have been doing this. And people citing Palmer and Jamil and others as to why this doesn't work, all the while we have been consistently getting great results by doing this.

And finally the folks in the larger brewing community, like Jamil, and Palmer, the podcasts and even the magazines are starting to realize that they passed on "common wisdom" based, I believed on the yeasts of the old days, that was crappy. And now they have to protect their egos and their cred as brewing gurus, so rather than just saying that they may have been wrong they are backpeddling a bit and saying "well maybe it's ok for homebrewers, but the pressures of a commercial vat of beer is different and THAT'S where we got the info from."

I don't know if that's true or not, and I don't care, all I know is that it works for our beers. And that's why we tell the new brewers to hold off awhile. It's not arbitrary, and we're not saying it because we think it just doesn't harm our beer, and therefore it's OK.

NO we advocate it because IT MAKES BETTER BEER.

I get MY information from a lot of places but I try and learn from experience. I like to think I know a thing or two, but I certainly don't know it all.
I've brewed the same recipe and left it in the fermentor for two weeks, The next time I brewed it I left it for 4 weeks and I really couldn't taste much difference. I've also kegged beer after a week and learned that's not such a great idea.
I think telling folks there will be a "vast improvement" by letting the beer sit for an extra two weeks is stretching it a bit. Letting it sit might help or it might not. Would you at least agree to that?
My point is that each beer is different and each brewer is different let the beer and the brewer decide when it's ready.
oh and
" NO we advocate it because IT MAKES BETTER BEER."
that my friend IS an arbitrary statement

 

[hal2814]

I get MY information from a lot of places but I try and learn from experience. I like to think I know a thing or two, but I certainly don't know it all.
I've brewed the same recipe and left it in the fermentor for two weeks, The next time I brewed it I left it for 4 weeks and I really couldn't taste much difference. I've also kegged beer after a week and learned that's not such a great idea.
I think telling folks there will be a "vast improvement" by letting the beer sit for an extra two weeks is stretching it a bit. Letting it sit might help or it might not. Would you at least agree to that?
My point is that each beer is different and each brewer is different let the beer and the brewer decide when it's ready.
oh and
" NO we advocate it because IT MAKES BETTER BEER."
that my friend IS an arbitrary statement

If I were a betting man, I'd wager that the folks here who actually primary for an entire month are a very vocal minority. I'm personally not going to contradict them. A month won't hurt anything and will ensure the batch has plenty of time as long as the brewer is ok with knowing the beer possibly could've been done sooner. But at the same time, there's no way I'll wait that long myself. I go grain to glass in 10-14 days on a few of my regular batches. I use big starters of yeast strains that aren't apt to leave a lot of diacetyl or sulfur behind. I don't do big beers. I use gelatin. I force carb. I do everything I can to reliably cheat time. I'd filter if I had the setup. Maybe I'm just the Vader to Revvy's Yoda But I won't go out there an preach it because unless you know what you're doing, these shortcuts could lead to disasters like bottle bombs and secondary fermentations kicking off in the keg. And these shortcuts are in no way universal. For example, any time I use Wyeast's Kolsch strain, it really does get a month in the primary. That strain of yeast really needs it. US-05? It gets a week of fermentation tops (counting from first signs of krausen). Fortunately for all of us, there are many different ways to handle fermentation and most of them work just fine.

 

[kumarc42]

i'm a relatively novice home brewer. i've brewed three batches, and in the midst of my fourth.

i've never used a secondary fermenter, but i have dry hopped my last two batches of beer - an IPA and a red ale. both have turned out fine.

i've now got a red ale, that i dry hopped a couple of weeks ago and is about ready to bottle. but, also in the primary fermenter (a glass carboy).

should i change up my practices?

 

[Denny]

It's up to you. My SOP is to try stuff for myself and see what I think rather than strictly doing what somebody says I should do. If I was in your place, I'd try a xfer to secondary, dry hop there, and evaluate the results.

 

[LagerLover24]

i'm a relatively novice home brewer. i've brewed three batches, and in the midst of my fourth.

i've never used a secondary fermenter, but i have dry hopped my last two batches of beer - an IPA and a red ale. both have turned out fine.

i've now got a red ale, that i dry hopped a couple of weeks ago and is about ready to bottle. but, also in the primary fermenter (a glass carboy).

should i change up my practices?

Dry hopping in the primary fermentor is fine, as long as you do it after the majority of fermentation is finished. If you add your hops while the beer is still actively fermenting, most of the hop aroma will be driven out by the C02.

I have done both methods, but much prefer to dry hop in the primary. The less beer is transferred, the less chance for oxidation and contamination.

Today most experts in home brewing consider secondary fermentation to be "old school". Yeast quality is light years ahead of what it was back in the old days. As long as you use clean, healthy yeast, they will not impart off flavors from prolonged contact with the beer.

 

[artyboy]

I like secondaries. They give your beer a chance to clear a lot better. If I let it sit for a month in the primary then I end up sucking out a lot of the trub with my auto siphon because the yeast cake is too thick. When I rack to secondary and let it clear then when I auto siphon the level of the cake tends to be under the level that the auto siphon sucks from. The same goes for kegging. When I keg from the primary I end up with that perfect level of cake on the bottom of my keg so just a little bit gets sucked into my beer which results in cloudy nastiness. Yeah yeah yeah...dead yeast is a superfood...a little yeast never hurt anybody...blah blah blah. I like clear beer.

 

[Denny]

I stopped doing secondaries for several years and I'm now back to doing them more often than not, for precisely the clarity reasons that artyboy mentions. I apprecaiet what the "experts" may say, but ultimately I prefer to experiment and decide for myself.

 

[Grasslands]

The only time I've used a secondary has been twice for dryhopping - once after a long time in the primary (21 days) and most recently after a relatively short primary time (11 days). I plan to use a secondary for the third time for a blueberry wheat where I'll be racking directly onto 3 lbs of blueberry puree.

Other than that, I'm in favor of longer primaries, but I understand where for some brewers (mostly newer ones), it's hard to let the beer set your schedule. I'm just now getting over that only 7 months into my homebrewing career - but I've been able to do so with an increased amount of fermentation vessels.

 

[Ouroboros]

I like using a secondary just to keep the pipeline flowing, but I've also been sold on the benefits of longer primaries. I took my first beer, an IPA, off the yeast after about 8 days, and it was okay but not great. I brewed the same thing again and left it alone 30 days and it had much less of an in your face bite to it.

 

[Hopheader]

You may know that removing a beer from the yeast too early can result in a few off-flavours?

 

[Nickme23]

Keeping a beer in Primary for a month makes sense, but I haven't heard anybody mention Wit or Weizen... You don't want a clear beer necessarily, and I'd be worried about too many phenols by leaving on primary for too long.

I'm brewing a Hefewiezen right now and I've kept the temp steadily between 62-64 with a swamp cooler and I really don't want to leave it in primary for a month but if you guys think it'd result in a better beer (fewer off flavors) then I'm all for it. I'll just have to go out and buy some more beer to hold me over till I can bottle condition and chill... sigh....

I can't remember who all has been suggesting the longer primary method, but I remember Revvy being a big supporter. So Revvy, have you ever done a wheat and followed the long primary method?

 

[Scooby_Brew]

I'm going back to using a secondary. One reason: CLARITY. You just can not produce a consistent clear beer in a home environment without a secondary. I like to have a clear beer on tap. That's why I went back to the secondary.

 

[winvarin]

I'm going back to using a secondary. One reason: CLARITY. You just can not produce a consistent clear beer in a home environment without a secondary. I like to have a clear beer on tap. That's why I went back to the secondary.

Primary x3 weeks. Keg your beer. Cold condition X2 weeks. Draw off the first pint or 2 before your company shows up. Viola. Clear beer!

 

[Revvy]

You may not be. Able to scooby but ican. Clarity is exactly why I leavebmy beersbinprimary for a month.

 

[Scooby_Brew]

I agree w/you guys, if I had some room in my kageretor to cold crush my kegs for a week or two before force-carbonating and serving, I wouldn't need to secondary. But unfortunately I don't have the room in my kegerator for cold-crushing, I only have enough room for my 2 "serving" kegs. So I need to use a secondary, to keep my beer clear. At least in the summer time. In the winter, I can cold crush my kegs in the garage, and that works great for me. But in the summer time I need to secondary. And if I was bottling my brews I would secondary too, just to keep my bottles free from collecting too much trub on the bottom.

 

[BogusOwnz]

I keep it in primary until fg has been reached or darn close usually 10-14 days then I rack it to free up buckets. I like to primary in buckets. I've yet to try a batch without racking, I just brewed a scotch wee heavy today I might leave it in primary to test no secondary out.

 

[ben229]

Let's say I do a big beer..like an imperial stout....primary it for a month and then just bottle it up and let it sit for three months before I open one up. Besides the carbonating, isn't the same thing going to happen in the bottle that would in a secondary? Besides the stuff that may happen as stated by secondary proponents, why would some of you long term primary folks make an exception and secondary a RIP? (I think Revvy used that as an example of a beer he would secondary earlier in this thread.) I would love to brew up a big RIP and let it sit in primary for a month and then bottle that pig up.