I am a beginner and currently have a spiced winter ale happily fermenting in the primary. I have always moved the beer to a secondary after 5 to 10 days. I got lazy with this batch and it’s been in the primary for exactly 14 days. I’ve researched this a bit and most sources suggest a secondary isn’t critical but certainly helpful. I think I’ll just leave it in the primary for another week then keg it. Any suggestions for how long I can leave it in the primary? Or any other techniques I should consider when not using a secondary?
If it is done fermenting and I would assume it is after 14 days also assuming you have checked the FG, keg it now.
Thanks for the response
This is what John Palmer said about secondary…https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=15108.msg191642#msg191642
How long you can leave in the primary depends on a lot of things, temperature, dead yeast brought over from repitching being the two biggest among them. But I think for 5 gallon batches the shelf life of primary “leaving in the primary” is a lot longer than most people think.
As far as “secondary” goes, if you have a keg and are planning on using that as a “secondary” then it is fine - as long as you purge it with Co2 first. If you can’t purge a “secondary” vessel with Co2 I’d recommend not using one unless you are actually planning on doing a secondary fermentation like adding fruit or another fementable.
Denny, thanks for giving the link above to John Palmer’s short treatise on (not!!) using a secondary. I gave it up after my very early brewing days when initially it was taken on faith & old outdated dogma. I’ve left beer in the primary several weeks because couldn’t get around to kegging- no ill effect whatsoever. Avoiding oxygen is the name of the game.
This is what I do. Once the beer ‘flatlines’ in the primary, I closed transfer to a CO2 purged keg. I believe a keg poses less risk to oxidation than my BrewBucket.
I personally believe that O2 staling from racking to secondary is a non-starter. I have yet to see any published large-scale test of this threat at the amateur brewing scale, just a lot of confirmation bias. As long yeast cells are in suspension, they will rapidly scrub any O2 that gets picked up during racking. For me, using a secondary is about kegging/bottling brighter beer faster, not about autolysis. Cold crashing works, but not as well as using a secondary due to size of the yeast biomass in a primary fermentation vessel. I do not always use a secondary, but when I want bright beer with a low amount of yeast sediment (i.e., when I am serving beer to company unfamiliar with beer that is alive), a secondary fermentation vessel is what I use. Now, the real danger from racking to a secondary is the significantly reduced cell count when racking from a secondary to a bottling bucket or keg. However, that risk is there when racking cold-crashed beer. It is just that amateur brewers are overlooking it.
A big Thanks to everyone. I learned a lot from the responses. Cheers!
Or perhaps we’re being guided by our own experience
I am counting on this to be true. I have heard Dr Bamforth say this as well. Even though I purge the keg and closed transfer, I realize my efforts are imperfect. Given that there is still yeast in suspension when I transfer, I hope I am using the yeast to my advantage by having them consume any O2 I inadvertently pickup.
If racking without regard to oxidation is a “non starter” then where do the oxidized flavors come from and why are they eliminated when care is taken to purge o2?
Oxidation is one of the main flavor issues I taste in a lot of homebrew and small scale breweries efforts.
I agree. Not the cardboard flavor, muted hops and dull malt.
A lot of the staling from exposure to oxidation data comes from industrial brewing. The big difference between industrial brewing and brewing at the amateur scale is that industrial and most bottled craft beer is filtered before being kegged or bottled. It is effectively dead beer. There is absolutely nothing other than additives or purging between dead beer and oxygen. A prime example of the difference between dead beer and alive beer is bottle-conditioned beer. Bottle-conditioned beer has a much longer shelf life than filtered, force carbonated beer because it is alive. This difference can also be seen in filtered and kegged beer versus cask-conditioned ale. A well-handeled cask-conditioned ale will serve for a lot longer than filtered kegged beer unless the kegged beer is kept under CO2. However, if air is allowed to enter the cask or keg, cask-conditioned beer wins every time. That is because cask-conditioned beer is alive.
By the way, I had a lively message exchange with Charlie when I was purchasing cultures from the UC Davis culture collections. He is an encyclopedia of brewing and malting knowledge.
Other than dividing batches I don’t rack to secondary simply because I don’t have a good reason to do it. If it isn’t improving the beer then it’s just some degree of risk of oxidation or infection for little to no reward. I can understand the point about clearing the beer in secondary but personally I haven’t had problems cold conditioning in primary and drawing off clear beer, even in bottles.
I will just have to disagree with Saccharomyces - I ran a craft brewery that didn’t have a filter and experienced problems with oxidation (we do have a cetrifuge but that was added only 3 years ago). I have experienced oxidation as a homebrewer as well. Purging all vessels with co2 mitigated or eliminated the problems. I know many others in the industry that do not filter and go to lengths to eliminate oxidation. I have access to a DO meter I will see if I can do some tests later next year on how much o2 remains in an unpurged secondary after racking.
I feel like I want to agree with both of you. I purge the keg with CO2 and am careful when transferring but I don’t achieve closed transfers. I crack the fermenter lid and use gravity to fill a purged keg. I fill into the out post using a ported fermenter to liquid QD into the keg. The keg lid is sealed during transfer and I purge the tubing in addition to the keg before starting. Maybe I can’t taste oxidation but I don’t think my beer is stale or oxidized. Even my light lagers are crisp and clean. My kegs go right into the fridge and I drink them within 6-8 weeks. They are never warm.
So maybe my process is good enough.
But, I have also done some awful things to beer. At least twice over the years I have had bad transfers (stuck) and just given up and poured the beer from the fermenter into the keg. I remember the last time I did this I thought after. Wow! That was great beer. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t oxidized. I am sure I got lucky. I was just gonna toss the beer if it was ruined. It wasn’t.
Homebrewers have a lot of control over their beer and keeping beer cold will slow down the effects of oxidation greatly. I’m with you that I have had screw up where I thought the beer was going to be ruined and it turned out just fine.
Of course there is the spunding approach to avoiding oxidation in the keg/secondary…
But I have to say, back when I used a secondary and racked after the primary fermentation was complete, I could see oxidation from a slight darkening. Maybe that put confirmation bias in my head, but I recall an Altbier I made that was cardboard in less than a month in the secondary. So, probably insufficient yeast were in suspension on that one.
Good discussion fellows!
I used to bottle condition a lot. The bottles I purged with co2 first lasted a lot longer than the ones simply primed.