How Long For Secondary?

[Nickb167]

May turn out to be a stupid question, but i was wondering how long i could leave a batch in a secondary plastic fermentor? The most time would be upto 2 months. Would this have any negative affects on the batch? Should i transfer it again after a few weeks? any info on this would be appreciated.

 

[Finite]

It can vary depending on the type of beer and gravity etc. You can also cold condition in the secondary which means its longer.

A good rule of thumb is the 1 2 3 rule.

1 week in primary
2 weeks in secondary
3 weeks in bottle / keg

of course this changes alot depending on beer and keged beers will be ready a bit sooner but 2 weeks is a good time.

Oh yeah.....What are you brewing, that kinda matters .

I never use secondary fermentation any more. It was just screwing up my beers more than helping and I have wonderfull brews when I leave in primary for up to 4 weeks (usually 3). Exception to this is some lagers and high gravity beers though.

 

[Nickb167]

im mostly brewing wheat beers, light ales and largers. However im looking at this as more of a storage solution before i put the beers in kegs as they are in short supply.

Nick

 

[Kai]

How long is a piece of string? There are no hard-and-fast rules involved, to me a secondary lasts as long as it takes to get the beer ready for packaging.

Don't worry about leaving your beer in secondary for a couple months, even if you have a plastic vessel. No need to rack it again unless you have excess levels of sediment ie the sediment is overflowing the tap.

 

[Paleman]

Depends on the temperature you store your secondary. The cooler the longer.

The warmer, well it may invite some nasty's quicker than cooler storage. This is just my HO.

But all going well in Primary, and Secondary transfer was as sanitary as possible.......i'd go two months max. Then i'd worry. Bottle it.