secondary or no secondary??

I've been told that switching to a secondary fermentor improves clarity and decreases bitterness, but how much of a difference does it really make.?

I've always made the move for my 5 gallon batches and normally have two going at once. Im now throwing in a couple 1 gallon "test" batches in the mix and was curious as to if switching to a secondary is even necessary. ....thoughts?

BaysideBrewer said:

I've been told that switching to a secondary fermentor improves clarity and decreases bitterness, but how much of a difference does it really make.?

I've always made the move for my 5 gallon batches and normally have two going at once. Im now throwing in a couple 1 gallon "test" batches in the mix and was curious as to if switching to a secondary is even necessary. ....thoughts?

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I'm an extract, 5 gallon brewer and I decided about 5 batches ago to no longer secondary. Just a PITA and never really realized the benefit.

Did you notice any difference in taste? I'm assuming not since you haven't gone back....

This is the most asked and discussed topic on here, on a daily basis there are 5 or six treads on this.

This discussion has been thoroughly covered in this thread, it's become the "uber discussion" on this topic.

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

Many of us skip secondary and leave our beers in primary for a month...we think it IMPROVES our beer. The thing is, not where you put the beer, it's the time you leave the beer alone...If you rack on day 14 and leave it 2 weeks, or if you leave the beer alone for a month in primary, you're going to find you make pretty great beer, than if you decide to bottle your beer on day 7....you're going to have to decide yourself which makes better beer, using a seoncdary or doing an extended primary...But all the questions have been answered, everyone's given their opinion, like I said this is the most discussed topic on here. Go read the above thread, and brew a couple batches and decide for yourself.

BaysideBrewer said:

Did you notice any difference in taste? I'm assuming not since you haven't gone back....

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The only advantage I've noticed was a gain in clarity. On bottle day there is less sediment also. But there is also about two less bottles of beer it seems, loss from container transfer.