I’ve read opinions all over the book and would like a few of yours. Right now, I’m well supplied for beer and I have
a kegerator on the way in a few weeks (whoopee!!). My “problem” is that I have an IPA that I brewed 3 weeks ago
and I have yet to rack to secondary and dry hop - which I plan to do today - at least the racking. And, yes, I do want
to get it out of the primary.
Question: If I rack to secondary today, how long can I wait before I HAVE to bottle/keg it? I would prefer to wait
on the arrival of the kegerator obviously. But I have a good beer coming in and don’t want to mess it up. What I’ve
heard is that if I rack it, I should be able to wait anywhere from 3-6 weeks. - or more. In this case, I will dry hop it just a week
or so before I bottle/keg. If I DO bottle in a week that means I have to brew again (to check out the kegerator) and
that really leaves me with too much beer. I know, that’s not a HORRID thing, but I already have bottles over-carbed from age.
I just posted in another thread that, in cleaning up notes last night, I realized my latest ESB had been in the fermenter a total of 77 days - carbed up fine and was really clear. As long as you do the dry hop at the end like you mentioned, you should be fine.
Yeah, keep it cold and it will last a long time. I wouldn’t secondary it at room temp. And an IPA should be consumed young so I really wouldn’t recommend storing it any longer than necessary. Also, be sure to purge the head space with Co2.
I wouldn’t rack to secondary until you were ready to dry hop.
Bottles don’t get over carbed from age, they get over carbed from too much sugar in the beer at bottling or from too much pressure on the keg for the temperature.
The old addage was to get the beer off the yeast before autolysis sets in. With the quality level of yeast much higher than in the past, I’ve heard of people leaving beer in primary for up to 6 months without a problem.
That being said, I still take my ales off the cake after 3 weeks and condition in the keg for 1-many. If I were you, even though I hate 2 transfers, I would dry hop in the secondary now and keg as soon as your equipment arrives.
Are you talking about any temp above normal fermenting temps for a given strain, or a particular beer style? I’ve kept beer in secondary (and I assume many others have) at room temp . . 68 to 74 degrees for several weeks and have no memory of ill effects or off flavors. . . all ales of course.
The question of whether or not to secondary is probably about as controversial as the question of wet or dry BBQ, but also not what the op was asking…
For me, with the exception of wheat beers, I always transfer to a secondary / conditioning carboy after fermentation is done. My typical schedule is 7 days primary fermentation, 21 days secondary conditioning, then bottle/keg. My primaries are temp controlled, my secondaries are not, so its room temp. I’ve never CO2 purged a secondary, but I also rack carefully and avoid any splashing or surface disturbance. I dry-hop in secondary. Seeing how much extra yeast falls out within 48 hrs of secondary from the disturbance is justification for me enough. I’m frequently complimented on my clear beers, and asked if I filter. I know hot/cold breaks are important too, but the more yeast that settles out before bottles / kegs the better as far as I’m concerned. My bottles always carb well, and I don’t usually have much of a yeast cake left in them. The yeast cake from the secondary however, is often harvested for future batches; its clean, flocculent and viable, with much less break and trub then the primary cake.
To (finally) answer the op’s question, I’ve had session brews sit in secondary for 3 months when I’ve not had a keg available (or I’ve been too lazy), without any flavor issues. My strong brews often spend at least that in secondary.
Could someone share a bit more about secondaries and autolysis?
My Rye/Wheat IPA (8%ABV, 88 IBU, 65 degrees F) spent two months in the secondary, and this white film started surfacing at the top of the beer’s surface in carboy. It didn’t change colors, tasted like yeast, but looked like mold forming. I bottled immediately but am not sure of what I have nor what to expect for shelf life, was going to wait a couple more weeks before sampling & maybe dumping. All the samples I’ve done with this have been great so far.
A big RIS (15=%) with a high FG. I thought I would have a great example of yeast autolysis to demo to a class. I didn’t detect it. So I asked several brewers (good BJCP Nationals) to evaluate it and told them there should be a flaw and I was looking for it, but I wouldn’t tell them until after their evaluation. They didn’t find any. Comment was that it presented with a quality of a Sam Adams Triple Bock. Served under-carbonated (intentionally) during a BJCP exam and scored mid-30’s due to insufficient carbonation at 6 years of age.
10.3 Autolysis
When a yeast cell dies, it ruptures - releasing several off-flavors into the beer. When you have a large yeast mass on the bottom of the fermentor, you have a large potential for off-flavors due to autolysis. If this ever happens to you, you will know it. The smell is one you will never forget.
Luckily, the propensity of yeast to autolyze is decreased by a decrease in activity and a decrease in total yeast mass. What this means to a brewer is that racking to a secondary fermenter to get the beer off the dead yeast and lowering the temperature for the long cold storage allows the beer to condition without much risk of autolysis. At a minimum, a beer that has experienced autolysis will have a burnt rubber taste and smell and will probably be undrinkable. At worst it will be unapproachable.
As a final note on this subject, I should mention that by brewing with healthy yeast in a well-prepared wort, many experienced brewers, myself included, have been able to leave a beer in the primary fermenter for several months without any evidence of autolysis. Autolysis is not inevitable, but it is lurking.
Some of us-Bonjour-have kept it on the yeast for 2 years!
Also, sounds like you may have developed some mold. You’ll know in a couple of weeks!
The rest of the story,
Originally brewed much smaller, but my mash temp thermo was reading 10F low. Changed it to an experimental and kept adding various sugars until the gravity quit dropping after the additions. FG 1.065
I have experienced problems in primary with leaving the beer on the yeast in the high 60’s/low 70’s upwards of 6 weeks. First you will begin to taste a “brothy” or meaty component. Then you will see a noticeable darkening of the beer. To me this ruins the finished product.
This has happened several times when procrastination over-ruled my better instincts. It would be better to transfer to secondary and chill or even better- rack to a keg. Bottles also are suitable.
What it boils down to is it is better to get the beer off the yeast cake sooner rather than later. While there are exceptions it is best practice to do this within 20 days. That’s nearly three weeks and for a “normal” average strength beer this amount of time is quite sufficient.
For what it’s worth, to reinforce the point that some others have made, I have also had beers that have aged on the primary yeast cake for well over 6 months and have NEVER had any off flavors from autolysis. I think the old conventional wisdom was due to the quality of yeast at the time. As long as you use healthy yeast, pitch enough yeast, and take care of them (maybe buy them dinner afterwards), you will not have any problems. If you stress out the yeast and have an unhealthy fermentation, I would think you could easily run into problems. For me, however, the risk of oxygenation during a transfer (which is unavoidable to some extent) far outweighs the risks of autolysis.