Hot answers tagged secondary
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Image from HowToBrew
Rather than thinking about stages of fermentation I like to look at the lifecycle of yeast. There is a great interview with David Logsdon from Wyeast on the April 5, 2007 episode of Basic Brewing radio.
Yeast cells bud in the presence of oxygen. Only yeast cells with a reserve of glycogen have the energy to bud and that glycogen ...
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I wouldn't bother. As Jack said, the CO2 given off during fermentation will provide a protective layer between your beer and the evil oxygen.
If you want to be really safe, you could not use a secondary at all. I only use them now if I am adding fruit or something to the beer during fermentation. Instead I just leave the beer in the primary for 3-4 weeks ...
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It couldn't hurt
Oxygen is one of the two beer spoilers that homebrewers can control. Reducing beer's exposure to it helps achieve maximum flavor stability.
However
Before going through the trouble and expense ask yourself if you have a problem. Do your beers taste like wet cardboard or stale crackers? Are you going to lay them down for an extraordinarily ...
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The oils in the bean are soluble in alcohol.
Temperature probably won't affect the process much
The more surface area the additive has, the faster & more complete the process will be (chop it up or leave it longer for more vanilla flavor)
Can't say about the question of caviar v. skin. Maybe taste each part to get an idea of what they will impart to ...
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I say use any size it fits in.
In the secondary, there is unlikely to be any significant foaming unless you add a fermentable flavor such as a fruit juice. A five gallon carboy will serve fine.
Concerns about oxygenation in larger carboys, in my opinion, are largely unfounded. Small amounts of fermentation are still occurring in the secondary as well as ...
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The current thinking among homebrew "experts" such as John Palmer and Jamil Zainasheff, as well as Wyeast and White Labs, is not to use secondary at all unless you're doing a true secondary fermentation by adding fruit or something like that. Just leave the beer in primary for 3-4 weeks, then package. That's the ultimate solution about what to use for a ...
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Warm it up to 70-75 prior to swirling it to rouse the yeast. Give it another week or two then check it.
Without knowing your recipe and process its hard to really tell. It could be as done as its going to be.
Next time leave it in primary until its at the final gravity. You have less yeast to work with now than you did when it was in primary.
EDIT: So ...
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1. Should beer be transferred to secondary for the purpose of dry hopping? If so, why?
A lot of it is down to personal preference. If you're not doing a secondary for other reasons, then racking to secondary can be considered unnecessary. The main reason for doing a secondary solely for dry hopping is that racking from primary and avoiding trub is tricky ...
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Add it at bottling or kegging. The flavoring does not need to sit for a prolonged period if you do not add too much so adding it to the secondary would be redundant. The time in the bottles to carbonate should be plenty of time to get what you are looking for.
A tip for the amount to add:
Take a 1/2 pint and drop some of the flavoring in and taste, add a ...
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How much priming?
See A Primer on Priming and How to Brew. Add sugar like you normally would.
Prepwork
Follow your normal keg prep work. Clean and sanitize the keg. Inspect the gaskets and seals. Purging it is not necessary, but will not hurt.
General thoughts
I do basically the same thing. My beer ferments for a few weeks, then I transfer it to ...
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Whenever possible I like to use Oregon Fruit Purees. These purees come in large cans that have been flash pasturized already. The fruit is also in a puree format so there is not additional prep and fruit to wort contact is superior to slicing and dicing the fruit.
Also for seeded fruits like strawberries and blueberries, much of the seed material has been ...
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I'll have to do some checking, but from what I understand, the biggest difference is time, the next being a vast difference in sourness. If you ferment first with a non-souring yeast the majority of the fermentable sugars will be converted quite quickly. Brett is very slow to ferment and also to multiply. If it has to ferment all of the sugars alone it ...
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For how much coffee to use, check out the recent "Can You Brew It" where they tried to clone Terrapin's Wake-n-Bake stout. They worked from the exact recipe as given to them by the brewer at Terrapin. You can even buy the same blend of coffee they use commercially, if that interests you. I just listened to it this week because I also have a big stout ...
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The yeast may still be working, and even if they aren't, CO2 may still be coming out of solution from temperature changes or agitation. Glass carboys are not meant to hold pressure, and they fail in a very dramatic and possibly dangerous way. Use an airlock for safety.
A keg designed to hold pressure is a fine alternative. You can even keep it under ...
5
I'd let it complete. You're not going to lose strawberry flavor by letting it ferment all the fruit. The sugar will attach the sugar from the berries; the flavor compounds will remain intact.
Also, even if you keg it now - racking it off the fruit pulp - it will continue to ferment the berry sugar in the keg. The yeast and the fruit's ...
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KEG IT NOW!
I make a strawberry wheat too and the beauty of kegging is to not worry about the extra ferment. If you were bottling then you have the right idea you'd have to let it go.
When I make mine I keg it when its at its peak. I usually make that beer in prep for my wife b-day which happens in late July. I plan it just right to ferment the beer, ...
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Great find.
Use the jugs for propagating yeast instead. By pitching super fresh and healthy yeast, you'll find that the need for finings goes away. Hence the reduced usage of secondaries amongst many homebrewers these days. Healthy yeast tends to flocculate out much better than so-so yeast.
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Addressing your sanitation questions:
Coffee:
One of your questions, paraphrased: Should I worry about secondary infection from coffee in secondary? I'd say your risk, much like the risk of most things brewing, is not from the water, which you can pre-boil on the stove or in the microwave, or the coffee which will be subject to a pretty high temperature ...
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OK, maybe this is a little weird answering my own question after I marked mdma's response as the answer. I want to share things I learned outside of the Exchange as a potential answer for future readers to consider.
I listened to (most of) the Brew Strong podcast and took notes. My new understanding is that dry hopping is as much a matter of style as any ...
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I wait until a day after the krausen has fallen back into the beer. You shouldn't leave it in the primary for more than 2 weeks.
PRO
Racking to a secondary can clean up a beer, and allow you time to condition the beer in bulk before bottling or kegging. It also will seperate the floculated yeast and trub giving you a cleaner beer in the end. You are ...
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I think what most differentiates primary from secondary is the separation of beer from sediment, or at least the effort to do so.
There may be other markers of the move from primary to secondary; like a transfer (which is the only way I know to separate the good stuff from yeast/sediment), additives, bottling, etc.
Or, maybe more simply, the difference of ...
4
I tend to completely ferment out in primary before moving my beer to 'secondary'. I ferment in primary for 14-21 days almost always. I crash cool the primary for the final 5-7 days of that total primary time. Then I rack to keg.
I think most people can agree that a secondary ferment is not a ferment, its just another conditioning step in the process.
...
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To follow-on to Dean's answer - while it's not a bad idea to purge the secondary, unless you're having a problem with oxidized beer I wouldn't worry about it. If you're currently using, say, a 6.5 gallon carboy as a secondary for 5 gallon batches, a much simpler fix would be to start using a 5 gallon carboy as your secondary. You want head space in the ...
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Let it ride for as long as you want. Keep in mind that the beer is aging and depending on its style and storage temp it may peak in flavor while you are off doing other things.
As long as you protect it from light and keep it as cool as possible (<70F-75F-ish) it should be fine.
The best thing for storing beer in a carboy would also be to ensure there ...
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Secondary for a Hefe seems silly to me. Leave it in primary for 5 more days is a better idea. Then rack right to bottling bucket for bottling day.
Actually 5 days in secondary for any beer is a waste of time really. Any benefit isn't worth the extra cleaning of equipment and risk of exposure to oxygen or airborne contaminants.
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I tried krausening several times before giving up on it. It's much more inexact than sugar, since the fermentability of the wort you prime with is inexact. It takes longer for the beer to carbonate. And there is no advantage to the flavor of the beer. I went back to using sugar since it was much more exact and predictable. The one place krausening can ...
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There are three variables that are important to controlling the production of acetaldehyde:
Yeast Pitching Rate
Wort Aeration
Fermentation Temperature
First, make sure you're pitching the proper amount of yeast. Check out Mr. Malty's Pitching Rate Calculator.
Next, make sure you're aerating your wort well. There are many ways to do this, from ...
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If it's American-style (American Amber Ale can be red), then dry hopping isn't a bad idea, as patbrew suggested. On the other hand, if it's a malt-forward Irish-style red ale, some raspberry could be pretty good in there. You can use raspberry flavoring from the HBS, or you can use raspberry liqueur, or you can even use raspberry preserves (look for ...
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Racking to secondary and letting it sit for a few more days or a week can improve clarity slightly but is by no means necessary. It will however make things easier to bottle without stirring up sediment in the process. If you're careful you can bottle straight from primary with about the same results.
I'm guessing since this is your first brew that you will ...
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There are a variety of techniques to clarify beer. Filtering is the quickest method but will strip out the yeast you need for natural carbonation, and potentially also some flavor compounds. Finings (gelatin, isinglass, others) will help large particles drop out; I'd recommend reading posts here about finings and/or talking to your LHBS about techniques with ...
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