Thoughts on Secondary Fermenting

[Kevin-K]

Hello all, I'm a newbie on batch 8. I have been racking to a secondary since I started and the beers have turned out great. Though, I'm only kegging which would sort of help the sediment issue after the first pour.

I'm really wanting to try this cold crash technique with using only a primary. My question is... after cold crashing, does the beer need to remain at a cold temperature, or can it come back up to 68ish for conditioning with developing off flavors?
Oh, and here's a picture of "Colleen's Wit", a Belgian Double I just racked into the keg about an hour ago.



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[rskelhorn]

This^^^^, except that I suggest to new brewers that they do the first hydro check at 13-14 days, another one 3-4 days later. If they're the same, you're good to prime/bottle.

If you have the means to do so, try cold crashing the primary after fermentation is done. I move mine into the 35-36*F for 5-7 days. It will do wonders for clearing the beer and still give you plenty of suspended yeast for bottle carbing.

Can you expand the cold crashing a bit for me?

Currently I ferment for ~2 weeks at 16C (60.8F)

I can bring my brew bucket into the crawlspace which is ~50F

Would it be worth doing this? It isn't as low as you suggest however.

Furthermore, even with cold crashing, are you saying that there will still be enough suspended yeast to carbonate? Would really hate to do it, then find out the yeast wasn't going to carb. for me

 

[Puddlethumper]

Can you expand the cold crashing a bit for me?

Currently I ferment for ~2 weeks at 16C (60.8F)

I can bring my brew bucket into the crawlspace which is ~50F

Would it be worth doing this? It isn't as low as you suggest however.

Furthermore, even with cold crashing, are you saying that there will still be enough suspended yeast to carbonate? Would really hate to do it, then find out the yeast wasn't going to carb. for me

I'll let BigFloyd take a shot at your question about the 50F temp being adequate for cold crashing, but as far as the suspended yeast is concerned, yes there will be plenty.

 

[BigFloyd]

I'll let BigFloyd take a shot at your question about the 50F temp being adequate for cold crashing, but as far as the suspended yeast is concerned, yes there will be plenty.

Never having cold crashed at 50*F, I couldn't say for sure how well that would work. It couldn't hurt.

I'd encourage you to give it 7-10 day at that temp and see how it does. Just be really careful moving it between there and where you plan to rack to the bottling bucket so that you don't slosh it around and disturb the yeast cake.

 

[Croyzen]

Secondary if you will be adding something like dry hops, fruit, etc AND you want to wash/reuse the yeast. Otherwise, all that can be done in a primary. Although racking an IPA onto whole leaf hops and not battling both the hops and trub/cake at bottle/keg time is also another good case for the secondary. Secondary if your primary fermentation vessel is a plastic bucket and you plan to let the beer sit for an extended period of time. It seems like the increased head space and the fact that buckets aren't always sealed air tight lead to the occasional infection when sitting for a while. I have no first hand experience with this though. Do not secondary because a beer kit tells you to. Do not secondary to "let the flavors mellow." You're more likely to get some off flavor or infection for your troubles. Been there. I never never never take a gravity reading just to know if the beer is done fermenting. I have always used glass carboys and after watching several batches ferment it's easy to see when a beer is done. No airlock activity, krausen falls back into the beer, yeast flocs out, etc. When it looks done it usually sits a minimum of three days but most of the time a week or two until I have a chance to deal with it. I take the gravity reading when racking the beer off and have always been within right on or a couple points of the expected F.G. Fermenting at the right temps and rehydrating or making yeast starters and pitching the correct amount of yeast for your batch is all it takes. Of course if something looked wrong the refractometer would come out for a reading. Too stingy to take a hydro sample. Northern Brewer has a nice calculator you can use to get a gravity reading using a few drops onto a refractometer even after fermentation has begun. You just need the original brix and current brix. Checked it against the hydrometer the first time and it was correct so that's all I use now. Anyway, that's my 2 cents!

 

[Puddlethumper]

To avoid taking over this thread I figured it would be a good idea to start a fresh one that might help us sort some of this out. I'd like to invite anyone following this who is interested in figuring out if secondary vs. no secondary has any impact on beer clarity to visit "Why makes some beers clear or cloudy?" under General Techniques.

 

[jrgtr42]

I'm going to chime in here, and I know I'm going to repeat some things that have already been said.
There are some ups and downs to secondary. The up is that you can get clearer beer, the down is the risk of oxidizing or infecting it.
I personally do not rack to secondary unless I'm going to be bulk aging it for a long time, a course of months, on wood, fruit or souring. If I'm going to be dry-hopping, or short-term wood aging, I just toss into primary.
I find that the argument of clarity can be mitigated by a little care in racking to bottling.
I will move my fermenter to the spot I need it at least a couple hours before actually moving it to bottling bucket - this will give whatever got stirred up in movement time to settle back down.
Some people talk about yeast autolyzing (I messed that spelling up, I know) which is basically the yeast decomposing down there, but in the cases of 5, 10 gallon batches over a few weeks, it's not a worry.
My own schedule for brewing is to make a yeast starter roughly 36 hours ahead of pitching time. Fermentation I leave be for 3 weeks. I will check the beer morning and evening for the first 48 hours or so, to make sure something is going on (I do not open the lid; that way is just asking for infection) and then maybe a couple times a week to make sure that the liquid in my airlock is still there.
After about 18 days (usually the third Thursday since brewing, since I usually end up brewing Sunday) I'll pop the top to check gravity. What I do is just spin the hydrometer in the bucket. I will drop it in sanitizer, make sure it's completely submerged for a few minutes, and then handle it as little as possible by the very very top.
I'll get the reading, then seal it back up. When it's bottling day, I'll check the gravity again the same way before moving the bucket to my kitchen counter.
boil and cool priming sugar, put that in the bottling bucket, then siphon the beer into it, making sure it's swirling, but not splashing. I'm pretty careful not to get into the trub at the bottom.

 

[Puddlethumper]

Secondarying to "clear the beer" just doesn't make any logical sense. There are other good reasons to secondary your beer, sure, but "clarity" is not one of them. If anything, it's detrimental to clarity, all other factors (mainly time) being held equal.

Believe it or not, I completely agree with you (to a point). Moving the beer to improve clarity makes no sense at all since long-term clarity is not affected in any way by whether you choose to move the beer or leave it in primary.

Long-term clarity is affected by proteins (chill haze, etc), starches (improper or incomplete conversion), yeast, ingredients such as wheat, and in some cases oils. You can affect chill haze by cold crashing, but aside from that these agents will not change whether you move the beer or leave it alone to the point of serving out of the fermenter.

Temporary clarity is affected by yeast cake and other trub that is stirred up by movement, racking, or some other mechanical action. In the case of temporary clarity it really doesn't matter one way or the other if you move the beer after 5 days or 50 days. The stuff that is stirred up will eventually settle out in whatever vessel it was moved to, be it a 5 gal. carboy or a bottle.

 

[kombat]

There are some ups and downs to secondary. The up is that you can get clearer beer

How? How does disturbing the beer while things are settling out result in clearer beer in the end? Please explain how you think the science behind this works.

 

[hharborbrew]

Do you guys have a few general bottling techniques or tips?

Attempting to do my first bottling in less than a week. So far Ive read that racking from top down is important as well as calculating the correct amount of priming sugar. What is the typical storage time for the bottles once theyre capped and how long should they be chilled for after?

Cheers!

 

[kombat]

3 weeks at 70° F oughta carb 'em up nicely, if you did everything else right.

 

[shaggy727]

Get it off the yeast cake or leave it on are both correct. Personally I use a 5.5 gal secondary to free up my primary and to clarify my beer a little bit. Getting it off the yeast cake is kind of an old philosophy that should definitely be used if you are doing a long ferment but it doesn't really make too much of a difference if you are only going to keep it fermenting for under a month or so. If you end up using a secondary, spray everything down that can come in contact with starsan rinse less sanitizer. I keep a spray bottle on hand at all times just for such occasions.

 

[govner1]

I'm old & patient. & it has helped me make better beer ( IMHO). I secondary the majority of my beers even if I'm not dry hopping.
I also keg condition all my beers vs. force carbing. Not really much more effort or time but really gives a nicely carbed beer.
It's all about your personal preference & how much you like your end product.


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[Puddlethumper]

It's all about your personal preference & how much you like your end product.

Nicely said

 

[hharborbrew]

Okay guys one last question on fermenting i promise.

Im planning on leaving my batch in the primary for at least 2 weeks. When is the first time i should take a reading? I dont want to expose the batch to oxygen.

Whats the best way and most sanitary way to take a reading from a plastic fermenting bottle with a 3 piece air lock?

Cheers

 

[masonsjax]

14 days is a safe bet. Take the airlock off and carefully pull a sample with a sanitized wine thief. Some are designed to let you test right in the theif. Make sure you don't put your hydrometer in until after uou pull a sample. Be careful not to pick up trub when stealing a sample. After testing, drink the sample rather than returning it to the carboy.

 

[Puddlethumper]

Im planning on leaving my batch in the primary for at least 2 weeks. When is the first time i should take a reading? I dont want to expose the batch to oxygen.

Whats the best way and most sanitary way to take a reading from a plastic fermenting bottle with a 3 piece air lock?

As far as timing goes, if you've already decided on a two week primary I'd suggest you take a reading at day 11 or 12. Another at day 13 and again at 14. If all are the same the batch is done. And I wouldn't sweat the exposure to o2 at this point. Unless you have a can of co2 laying around that you can shoot a little on top of the beer before re-sealing, there really isn't a lot you can do about it.

As far as technique is concerned: Mix up some StarSan in a spray bottle. Clean the area around the stopper well and then spray the whole top of the bottle with StarSan solution. Clean and sanitize your hands and the wine thief or turkey baster and pull your sample. Clean and sanitize the stopper and airlock, refill the airlock with fresh StarSan or vodka and put everything back together. Then see what your hydrometer tells you.

 

[Puddlethumper]

. After testing, drink the sample rather than returning it to the carboy.

+1

Good idea to start getting an idea of what beer at this stage tastes like.

 

[hharborbrew]

Great, thanks guys for all the help. I appreciate the great advice!

 

[Kevin-K]

I'm old & patient. & it has helped me make better beer ( IMHO). I secondary the majority of my beers even if I'm not dry hopping.
I also keg condition all my beers vs. force carbing. Not really much more effort or time but really gives a nicely carbed beer.
It's all about your personal preference & how much you like your end product.


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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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[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.