The Secondary Fermenter Debate

[srkaeppler]

Hey All-

Bearing in mind that most of you are probably beer brewers as well, I would like to hear some opinions on the matter of secondary fermenter. I know I have asked this of a few people, but wouldn't mind hearing more to make more sound judgments in the future.

So I have read that secondary fermentation are really useful for dry hopping, adding fruit flavors or other things (oak). I just got a porter kit and have been thinking about trying a new philosophy: "3 and 3(+)" - 3 weeks in primary, (at least) 3 weeks in bottles. My personal bias is that leaving things in bottles for quite a while does wonders for the beer. This mainly comes from my own experience brewing.

So at any rate, I am just curious what people's thoughts are about doing secondary fermentation. Is it something you should always do? Or do it when you're flavoring.

As a final note, I also believe strongly that 9/10 times, doing it one way or the other for a standard beer(no extra flavors), it probably won't make a huge amount of difference. Regardless, hearing other voices and opinions is always a good thing.

Thanks all!

Steve

 

[Chevette Girl]

[edit - this is point of view from a meadmaker, not a beermaker so please ignore anything irrelevant]

Honey changes the game.

Hydromels can be finished that fast, if you aim for something around 5-7% it will often clear quite quickly. But they're still better if you give them a few months before drinking, the honey flavour can fade out durig fermentation but makes a comeback in a few months.

Our quickest-drinking mead (Joe's Ancient Orange) is tolerable in 2 months, much better after 6 or eight months. Generally nothing else that's at a wine strength (above 10%) is worth even tasting until 6 months to a year at least, and strong ones (above 15%) often make a lot of rough flavours that you want to age out before they taste better than rocket fuel.

If you aim high for your starting gravity or you mismanage your fermentation by either starving it for nutrients or not aerating it enough, you may have a fermentation that takes a long time (weeks or months) to finish up and start clearing unless you hit it with sulphites and sorbate to hopefully halt the ferment, but there's no guarantees that this will work, them little yeasties do sometimes have a mind of their own. Typically for those of us who ferment on the fruit, we don't leave the fruit in longer than a week or two, otherwise you can start getting off flavours, so typically, primary fermentation is a week or two, then we rack to secondary to let things settle out and let the yeast finish whatever they're still working on, and generally we leave it there until it clears AND the SG has stopped moving before we contemplate bottling.

As long as the fermentation is all the way complete, it doesn't really matter where the aging is done, whether it's carboy or bottles, but you'll get more consistent results with carboy-aging. Most of my creations sit in a carboy for a year before I bottle, then another year in the bottles before I drink it.

As Medsen Fey says, patience is the most important ingredient in a mead and it should be applied liberally. 3+3 might be fine for beers but you'll be sadly disappointed with most meads if you taste them at 6 weeks. And some might barely be done primary by the 3 week mark.

 

[cayo hueso]

Generally speaking, if you plan on having your beer in the carboy for more than a couple of weeks, you would want to move it to a secondary. As a habit I almost always rack my beers to a secondary, especially if I want to age them for a while. If you are planning on dry hopping your beer, you should move it to a secondary prior to dry hopping. Regarding your aging schedule, id consider moving your beer to secondary after initial fermentation has subsided, THEN leave it for 3 weeks. If you're doing a robust porter id probably let it sit in the bottle for at least 6 weeks before drinking.

If I were dry hopping a porter id probably stick to the british varieties such as EKG or fuggles. they have a more subdued earthy fragrance that will balance well with the style. Hope it comes out great!

 

[Loadnabox]

+1 for CG's post, I'll bullet point the important things:

• Aging periods go up as the alcohol content goes up.
• Wines take long enough that bulk aging before bottling is generally preferred.
• Bottle aging will produce less consistent results than bulk aging
• Fruit shouldn't be left on the must for more than a couple weeks to avoid off flavors
• Fruiting in primary/secondary is an on-going debate and mostly a matter of personal preference.
• Give any mead minimum 2 months to age
• 6-18 months aging is more commonly needed

 

[Braxton]

Yeah, there is a debate in the homebrew beer world about secondary fermentors. The risk of autolysis from not racking out of primary soon enough is fairly low with beers. If you're making a low gravity beer and pitching a lot of yeast, it is something to be concerned about. But most of the time you can leave a beer in primary for a couple months without ill effects.

Some folks argue that racking into secondary is unnecessary and promotes more oxygen uptake and staling. Others contend that a secondary fermentation helps clear the beer and results in less sediment in the bottle or keg. Both are true, it's just a matter of where your values lie. For a British ordinary bitter using the Wyeast 1968 strain (incredibly flocculant) there is definitely no need for a secondary fermentation. For a sour beer or barley wine destined to be aged for a year before packaging, you definitely want a secondary. For most of the stuff inbetween it is up to you.

I rarely do secondary fermentations these days for my beers, unless I am dry hopping them. Laziness is a big factor in this decision, so it's not really objectively meaningful.

I still do secondary fermentations for all my meads, EXCEPT for some stir-plate batches I've done. These ferment so fast and clear so quickly that there is occasionally no need for a secondary.

 

[srkaeppler]

Thanks all, as always. Good guideslines to go by and thank you all for taking the time. Really, this is just to get a feel for things. Wayne told me a nice rule once, which I think also applies(and this is not verbatim, but paraphrasing): "If you don't know when you will be able to bottle, it is better to put it into a secondary fermenter. Time in there isn't so critical." I would definitely agree that higher gravity beers, one ones that need plenty of time benefit from secondary fermentation.

At any rate, I may experiment a bit. Again, I am skeptical I will have a major shift in quality. I don't plan to take the time, effort or money to try to scientifically test out which is method is better. Ultimately all I care about is good tasting beer!

All of my upcoming beers will probably be pretty short term deals, nothing too long term. Although I am thinking about doing a barley wine soon...

Steve

 

[calicojack]

this thread should be a sticky

 

[commonsenseman]

I try to keep it as simple as possible.

For beers, if it will be aging for more that a month, it goes into secondary.

If it's only going to be a month or less, regardless of whether I'm dry-hopping, adding oak, etc, it will stay in primary the whole time.

There are often benefits to keeping beer in primary on all of that yeast for more than a week or two. A lot of brewers believe that giving them up to four weeks (sometimes up to 8 weeks) on the yeast cake can be beneficial, by allowing the yeast to clean up after themselves. One of the arguments for a secondary is that it help the beer to clear, although I have not found this to be the case. It seems to be more of a function of brewing practices/time. If it's not needed, secondary can also add additional risks, such as contamination, oxidation, etc.

Of course this does not apply to mead, as generally it will be aging for a considerable amount of time before bottling.

YMMV

 

[danlb]

Hey,

Interesting thread. I've split it about 50/50, depending on whether or not I'm going to be able to schedule a bottling day for sure. I've never been able to tell the difference, they've always came out great either way(same recipe). If I'm going to bottle straight from primary, I'll leave it there for 3 weeks. If its going to secondary, I'll usually move it there a week or a week and a half in, then it can sit in secondary for another couple of weeks.

I do always be careful when racking to secondary though, not to splash or siphon too vigourously.

 

[Old_Skool]

Ah yes, these debates can rage on for several many pages. Everyone has an opinion ... and racking to secondary is a topic in the same area as politics - religion - and taxes. Best to make a choice and move on ...

Skimming through the posts (so far) both sides are presented more or less. My choice is to always secondary --- yes its a hassle but my beers always (always) come out of secondary tasting good. Especially if they were a bit rough due to primary fermentation issues. Time and patience heals a lot of things. And with modern sanitizers like Star-san and good cleansing processes - infection is really not an issue.

Funds are tight right now, but the next step for me is to pop $180 - $220 for a plastic conical fermenter. Then when primary fermentation is done just open the drain and let the "yeast cake" push out and its on to secondary in the same vessel. Its a dream come true for my dish pan hands.