does secondary change mouthfeel?

[CyberErik]

I have a beer where I purposely coarse filtered coffee so as to have some gritty texture to the beer, to coat the tongue with coffee.

I know even primary fermentation will clarify the beer and remove a lot of this sediment, but would secondary do it even more?

What are the pros/cons to secondary? Do you have to do one? When do you not do one?

 

[beaksnbeer]

Long story on this you can research it here.
Short story it was thought that getting the beer off the yeast cake would help off flavors + helping the beer to clear, mostly considered an unnecessary step with the risk of infections and oxidation

 

[DirtyOldDuck]

No, a secondary will not clear the beer better or faster. Yeast and whatever else may be floating around in your beer (apparently coffee grounds) drop out of suspension as a function of time and temperature. Secondaries have no magical properties to clear beer better. Reasons to use a secondary - you are racking on to fruit or wood chips or something similar, or you want to bulk age a batch.

 

[Dan]

Not necessary unless you need the fermentor space. Floaties will drop out of the beer same way with either method. Gravity is hard to get around.

The occasion to use a secondary seems to be woodchips or fruit. Not sure why? I've never tried that. It's always included in the no need to secondary "except" replies. Why? Hopefully somebody will explain.

 

[DirtyOldDuck]

Not necessary unless you need the fermentor space. Floaties will drop out of the beer same way with either method. Gravity is hard to get around.

The occasion to use a secondary seems to be woodchips or fruit. Not sure why? I've never tried that. It's always included in the no need to secondary "except" replies. Why? Hopefully somebody will explain.

I don't use wood chips, but may make a fruit beer soon. I am sure you could do it all in the primary, but a secondary will make it easier to wash the yeast for reuse.

 

[hoppyhoppyhippo]

No, a secondary will not clear the beer better or faster. Yeast and whatever else may be floating around in your beer (apparently coffee grounds) drop out of suspension as a function of time and temperature. Secondaries have no magical properties to clear beer better. Reasons to use a secondary - you are racking on to fruit or wood chips or something similar, or you want to bulk age a batch.

There's another reason to use a secondary I can think of (and will be using for my 1 gallon batch Thursday) is to rack to secondary for dry hopping so you can throw another batch on the yeast cake (or wash the yeast if you want to take the time to do that) just as a way to save some money on yeast and continue to age your beer.

 

[kh54s10]

The last 2 times I did a secondary were: 1) to get the yeast for another brew but I didn't have time to bottle and brew the same day. 2) For my Wee Heavy that I left in secondary for about 2 months. I dry hop in primary with no issues and have never made a fruit beer.

I don't think how you ferment has much to do with mouth feel. The recipe does most of that.

 

[doornumber3]

i'll chime in on this....I'll be the first to say i used to be a huge fan of secondary. I'm in the middle of tryng an experiment....brewed the same exact beer that I did a few months ago and left it in primary and dry hopped in there as well. I did my sample yesterday before bottling and I have to say that the flavor was still very good and i couldn't tell a difference. It did look a little less clear but i'm guessing that will change after 3 weeks of bottles.

 

[CyberErik]

This is exactly the information I wanted. A quick google search hit a million articles on the pros/cons of secondary in general, much of which was argued here, but you guys also answered my specific mouthfeel question. Thanks guys!