Is There A Need For A Secondary Fermenter? After The Primary?

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Hey guys got this great book today, really good stuff and most of what we have talked about here only after the wort is ready to be put in a plastic fermenter that after a certain period it is then place into a Carboy (glass jar) for it's secondary fermentation....is this normal for a BIAB all grain or an Extract brew? just want to confirm this method is the way to do it. Thanks

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

yeah true, keep it simple first. Thanks.

[Beau]

Why bother with any carboy or fermentation bucket at all?

An interesting technique is to just ferment in your stainless brew pot.  There are lots of threads elsewhere on this method backed up by some awesome experiments.  They show that the trub left behind in the wort during fermentation has no adverse effect on brew taste or clarity for the vast majority of beers.  In fact it may even provide enhanced nutrition for the yeast and thus overall yeast health. Check out the experiments if you don't believe me: 

http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/02/the-great-trub-exbeeriment-results...

http://brulosophy.com/tag/ferment-in-kettle/

There are also killer commercial brewing options that utilise something similar to this technique like the brew-in-a-conical (BIAC), although not exactly the same as you can expel the trub after it's settles through the bottom the conical:

http://brewhaequipment.com/products/biac-package

Even without knowing these things I started to do this for most of my wheat beers out of sheer laziness.  Traditionally they are fermented open to the atmosphere anyways so I thought "what the heck".  Also given that they were wheat beers, I didn't care much about residual cloudiness.  They turned out great and make a BIAB brew day super easy.

There are times however when you will need a fermentation bucket and a secondary.  The key is to know when you need them, so do your homework before brewing something you are not familiar with.  For instance, you might want to use a primary simply so that your brew kettle isn't occupied for a week or two while your beer is fermenting - in case you want to put down another brew.

You may also need a primary if your ferment period is likely to be longer like in a high gravity beer, or with a slow yeast like a kolsch.  In this case the primary is useful so that you can use it with an airlock and have a tight sealing lid to exclude oxygen and the possibility of acetobacter contamination.  

Secondaries are essential for most traditional lagering and sour beers as they take a much longer period of time to mature and develop.  They are also great for long gravity-clarifications as they are usually glass or transparent plastic so you can see how things are progressing!

So rationalise your methods to the beer your making.  And if it's one that's straight forward and doesn't take too long to ferment, try ditching both the secondary and primary!  Less clean-up.  Yay!

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Thanks appreciate your reply, I think I would probably want to use my Brew Pot again while waiting for beer to ferment so will go the road of one fermenter with a screw on lid with an airlock of course...If your trying to make a 23L brew a 30 litre fermenter bucket should be adequate?  

[Nathan]

Yup

[Cain Harland]

Lately I've be doing 2 or 3 weeks in primary and dry hop in last day or 2 then cold crash for 1 week adding 1/2 or 1 tsp gelatine mixed with about 200ml boiling water after the first day. The gelatine/cold crash has been making the beer super clear.

Daza I will explain cold crash in case you haven't herd the term yet, its basically just dropping the temp of your beer for a while before moving it out of the fermenter and causes a lot of yeast and other stuff to settle out, the gelatine binds to yeast and protein and settles on the bottom too taking even more of it out of the beer, there should still be enough yeast left to carbonate the beer in the bottle. I have a temperature controlled fridge that my fermenter sits in so I ferment at say 17.5c (seems to be a good temp for US05 which is what I mostly use) for 2 weeks then turn the temp down to 3c for one week.

[Grant R Baker]

I use Secondary for any post-fermentation additions. Get the beer of the yeast cake and add the extra adjuncts (choc, lemon etc). Sometimes I will use secondary just to age a beer and my kegs are full. I prefer a carboy for this with very little to no head space.

 

Oh and I always lager in Secondary when doing so.

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Should I get a screw plastic lid fermenter or a clip on plastic lid fermenter and what about size for a 23L batch of wort? which one and why? cheers.

[Scarrfie]

Agree with most that there is no need to rack to secondary. However I do it for lagers so I can dump a new batch on the yeast cake.

One issue I haven't seen mentioned is that plastic isn't impervious to oxygen. However my plastic buckets have gone for two months lagering with no obvious oxidation. Plenty of other faults, but not oxidation. Lol.

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Is it a screw on lid or just clip on lid that's better? Thanks.

[Nathan]

SCREW only heard bad things about the clip on ones or get a Malt Mechanics conical

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Hi Nathan, what's the Malt Mechanics conical? a guy at work who does brew says the screw on lids are harder to clean??

[Nathan]

nah they easy to clean.....trust me you will get used to cleaning everything ......google the conical