my recipe says to use a secondary - can I just leave it in primary?

[philistine]

I've got an all grain weizen bock recipe that seems to have a lager type fermentation schedule.

Ferment at 8° C for three days.
Raise to 10° C for three days.
Raise to 13°C.
Rack into secondary when gravity reaches less than 1.020.
Cool to 5° C and ferment to 1.008 (about three more days).
Age at 5° C until clear (seven to 14 days).
Bottle and prime. Condition in the bottle as long as desired (30 to 60 days).

I only have one carboy and I was just going to ignore the racking to secondary part and leave it in primary till I get target gravity and then bottle - is that gonna be ok?

 

[philistine]

and another question - should I be keeping the bottles at a low temp while they're conditioning as well? or can I leave them at garage temp?

 

[Bribie G]

Where did you get that recipe from and what yeast are you using?

The "black hole" in the recipe is that line "Rack into secondary when gravity reaches less than 1.020." A week? 10 days?

Along with probably the majority of the forum members I haven't racked for years. Even with lagers I have found it's perfectly ok to leave the beer on the yeast in "primary" and just reduce the temperature for clearing and lagering.

edit: once the fermentation is complete the flavour of the beer is pretty well locked in and bottle conditioning at ambient isn't going to cause any off flavours.

edit edit: now you've got me going - I believe the racking thing came about because in the old days beer would be lagered for months over the winter and would be transferred to separate lagering vessels, e.g. as they still do at breweries such as Pilsner Urquell, to get the beer out of the primary fermenting vessels so they can do new batches, and also to avoid the brew being in contact for months with dying yeast and problems with autolysis of the yeast that can introduce off flavours.

For us at home, with fairly short lagering times, this is not likely to be a problem.

 

[philistine]

the recipe was just one of many I found on the google once I started looking around at Dunkel, doppelbock and Weizenbock recipes (ie. I cant remember where I found it coz I just copy/pasted it into a text file)
I think its supposed to be a Schneider Aventinus clone.
Im either gonna use the yeast that Im trying to culture out of an Erdinger Pikantus if it works (**** that is good beer btw) , or if it doesnt, the recipe suggests using wyeast 2206 or 3333.
Here's the recipe tho.. I had to convert all the measurements into metric and temps into celsius and I also changed the final hop addition to tettnang just for shits n giggles (original used hallertau only)

19 litres, all-grain
Ingredients:

• 3.3 kg wheat malt
• 2.72 kg. Munich two-row
• 1.35 kg. chocolate malt
• 28 gm. Hellertaur hops @ 90 min.,
• 7 gm Tettnang. at end of boil
• Wyeast 2206 (Bavarian lager) or 3333 (German wheat)
• 2/3 cup corn sugar for priming

Step by Step:
Mash grains in 16 litres. water in a single infusion at 67° C for 60 min. Sparge with 76° C water to collect 20.1 litres
Total boil is 90 min. At start of boil, add 1 oz. Hallertauer hops. At end of boil add 7 gm. Hallertauer hops. Chill to 7.2° C and pitch yeast in a starter.
Ferment at 8° C for three days.
Raise to 10° C for three days.
Raise to 13°C.
Rack into secondary when gravity reaches less than 1.020.
Cool to 5° C and ferment to 1.008 (about three more days).
Age at 5° C until clear (seven to 14 days).
Bottle and prime. Condition in the bottle as long as desired (30 to 60 days).
*Note: To employ a step mash, the real Aventius employs a rest at 53° C and is stepped up to 67° C with hot water.