Hot answers tagged secondary
7
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 ...
6
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 ...
4
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 ...
4
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 ...
3
Avoiding sediment floating around in the glass is often a function of carefully pouring from the bottle. If bottled beer is allowed to sit and condition properly, given time the yeast and other solids in suspension will settle to the bottom and create a fairly tight sediment in the base of the bottle. Upon opening a careful pour should leave much of it ...
3
In my experience, the biggest cause of non-clear beer in your glass is chill haze. You can rush from fermentation being complete to bottling, without any significant "conditioning" time, and the beer in the bottles will become crystal clear quite soon. But put those bottles in the fridge and you'll have chill haze by the time the beer is at drinking ...
3
A 3 Gallon Carboy is $20 USD i think. I would much rather let my beer condition the proper length of time then be dissatisfied with the end product. After all about $20ish worth of materials probably went into the beer no?
As to bottle conditioning vs secondary conditioning. While yes you can simply condition in the bottles you will be waiting longer and ...
3
You absolutely do not need an airlock for secondary, assuming you wait til fermentation is done. I've sealed a carboy with a stopper many times for a secondary, although these days I usually use foil. If the beer is still outgassing, you will have a bit more dissolved CO2 in it, but not enough to worry about the carboy exploding. A keg also works really ...
2
Cold crashing will definitely reduce the amount of yeast found in the bottle. And with less yeast in suspension there will be less floatables to reflect light, meaning your beer will appear darker than it would had you skipped cold crashing.
I agree with @cleber in that you definitely will need extra time to properly carb up your bottles but everything ...
2
Use a hydrometer and take a reading at the same time every day for the next three days. If the reading is the same each time, then fermentation should be done.
Airlocks aren't really a great indicator as far as determining when fermentation is finished, so don't rely entirely on that. Also, Sometimes you may not see much krausen during fermentation, other ...
1
Yes, you are correct. Without some other source of C02, the beer will lose pressure as the level drops, and it will stop coming out of the keg altogether soon.
Can you post a link to the "5 gallon plastic keg with tap" in question? I can't imagine why anyone would sell a keg that can't be charged, and I've never heard of a 5gal plastic keg vessel either. I ...
1
The basic problem you will have is that you need some yeast in suspension for bottle carbonation (if you don't have them, you need to add them).
Racking to secondary will increase the clearness of you beer, while adding another chance for getting the beer infected. Generally all literature today recommends you not to rack to secondary unless you have to ...
1
Racking to secondary most definitely helps with clarity, if you are unwilling (or unable) to rack to a secondary another great option is using gelatin to clear up the brew.
2/3 cup water
1 tsp gelatin
Heat the two ingredients together in a microwave (most recommend 15 sec increments) shoot for about 150F and then stir to dissolve the gelatin into the ...
1
The canned puree will be sterile, so the concern about having to wait until secondary to have the alcohol to help sanitize is a moot point.
To my mind, the tradeoff with adding late in primary or as part of secondary is really if there is enough yeast in secondary to consume the sugars in the fruit and clean up by-products from the primary ferment. When ...
1
I don't have experience in cold crashing, so can't answer all the questions, but here are my 2 cents:
I wouldn't worry about yeast on the bottles on a imperial stout, you probably won't see or taste any of it due to the roasted malt flavors.
For the same reason I wouldn't do dry hopping, you won't notice the smell of the hops due to the roasted malts and ...
1
Going against the recent dogma. I always rack to secondary for the very useful clarifying effect which is caused by a second round of yeast sedimentation. In primary you are usually good to rack to secondary after the krausen, the yeasty bubbly head, subsides which usually happens simultaneously with reduced activity of bubbling in the airlock. After that I ...
1
For an IPA you typically want to finish in the 1.010 to 1.018 range, so let it go for at least a couple more days and take another gravity. If you want to rack it into secondary at that point go for it, but most of the time an average IPA (especially a beginner's kit) is good to bottle/keg straight from primary. Depending on the type of airlock you are using ...
1
Unless your recipe calls for lots of dry hopping or the addition of fruit, you probably don't really need to do a secondary at all. Pitch yeast, let it rip, wait 3 weeks, then bottle. If the fermention kicks off within the first 24 hours and looks strong, then don't even bother checking gravity for the first 2 weeks (unless you have a strong drop in temp ...
1
My name is Joseph and I have been making wine for about 50 years. It has become a tradition being passed down from generation to generation. I have always made good wine and I can't remember spoiling a batch but I must have. It happens to all wine makers even the pros. Lately I started to brew beer and I have made about 6 batches of Coopers home brew.
I ...
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