New Brewer - Secondary fermentation and carbonation

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Geordie_Oz

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HI Guys,
i am brand new to the forum and relatively new to brewing so please bear with me on this, I have done a few home brews from kits and now im moving onto extract brewing and i am reading a lot of stories on secondary fermentation, some people saying its worth it some people saying its not.
I am planning to give it a go, but also wanted to hear people opinions, i'm planning on brewing quite a light session ale something cool, crisp, clean and refreshing for a warm Aussie day in the sun.

My second questions is carbonation, up until now i have been using the carbonation tablets in my bottles, i do not have a kegging system, straight from the fermenter into the bottle.
I have just read that i should put a priming solution into the secondary fermenter before i rack my beer but this is not for carbonation but for secondary fermentation, would i need to add another priming solution to the beer again to carbonate before i bottle? What is the best way to approach this?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Geordie living in Australia
Geordie_Oz
 
Hey mate,

Honestly i would not bother transferring to secondary or bulk priming i have done both and the chance of picking up something whilst racking to secondary is something you don't need. Carbonation drops are consistent, bulk priming is good but i don't bother with it. Probably because i am kegging though, that is just my opinion.

cheers,
 
Thanks Major,
it maybe was the kits that i was using but i always had a lot of sediment at the bottom of the bottles,first thing that came to my mind was the carbonation drops, the beers were a bit cloudy and i was never happy with them which is why i want to try for better extract beers.

i read that by racking i would reduce the sediment, not sure what was going on with the couldy bits, maybei had not let the yeast eat up the sugar..

Cheers Bud
 
Hewey me bonny lad. As Major telt ye.

I gave up transferring to "secondary" years ago and often lager at low temperatures for up to three weeks in the original fermenter.

To reduce sediment, I'd not even think about bottling until at least ten days. Then you should be getting fairly clear beer into the bottles. Then the priming sugar will of course kick the yeast off again, which is unavoidable, but again the small amount of yeast generated will fall out into a thin layer.
One thing you could try is to use Nottingham ale yeast instead of the kit yeast... available from most home brew shops. It ferments quickly, drops out quickly and generally forms a firmer layer at the bottom of bottles.

The main thing about brewing at any time of the year is temperature control. Obviously the weather in Sydney isn't as bracing as a nice February day on the beach at Cullercoats but it can get nippy for several months of the year.
If you have an area with stable temperature such as a garage or laundry you'll be in good brewing weather fairly soon and should be able to brew ales and leave them in the fermenter without worrying that they may get infected or develop off flavours.

If you are using the brown PET beer bottles you can use good old fashioned sugar cubes for a fraction of the price of carb drops.
 
Bulk priming is pretty easy and worth it if you want clearer beer with controlled carbonation. All you need is a second fermenter. I personally don't bother with secondary fermentation and there's a great big thread about it here if you want to get some opinion: http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/90173-how-do-you-secondary/

But bulk priming I will do if I'm bottling more than a handful of beers. If you're new to home brewing, don't bother with secondary fermentation. One step at a time. You might find that secondary fermentation suits you but for now, stick with primary fermentation and bulk priming. That'll be enough to get on with!

Use this to calculate your bulk priming needs: http://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/
 
I think there is some confusion here.
Secondary Fermentation is the process of fermentation in the bottle (or sometimes keg) where priming sugar is fermented to produce CO2 to put bubbles in your beer.

Secondary Conditioning is when you take the beer off the trub from a primary fermenter and put it into a secondary fermenter. This is not for fermentation but either for extended conditioning off the yeast (although there is still plenty in solution), lagering, adding fruit or adding priming sugars. If adding priming sugar it should then be decanted straight away into bottles so the secondary fermentation can take place.

Edit: adding fruit in the secondary will kick off secondary fermentation as the sugars are eaten up and produce more alc.. But by and large secondary fermentation refers to the carbonation process in bottles.
 
Yes, I used to put beer into a water container / cube then bung it in my fridge in order to do various stuff to it (add gelatine, add polyclar etc) and not to continue fermentation. In fact if fermentation still took place I was a bit annoyed at myself for my haste.

However that was in my bottling days. Nowadays, as I keg, I let clearing and "cleansing" of the beer take place in the keg.

I'm sure the OP can get better results by just letting the batch ferment longer and settle out.
 
There are reasons to rack to a secondary fermentor, but there is a risk of oxidation and infection, so even when I was bottling I didn't do it unless i was conditioning the beer for an extended period of time (4 weeks plus) and wanted to avoid off-flavours from yeast autolysis.

If clear beer is your aim, then a highly flocculant yeast is a good idea (as suggested by Bribie, Nottingham is a good choice for a dried yeast and I know brewers in the UK who use nothing else).

Also, adding gelatine should help. There are a number of ways to add it, but for a 20L batch mine is:
- boil water, rinse 2 clean cups (taking care not to scold yourself) and about 250 ml to each cup
- cover cups with foil and put a thermometer into one cup through the foil
- when thermometer reads 70c, add 1 tsp of gelatine to the cup without the thermometer and stir with a sanitised fork until its dissolved
- add straight to fermentor

After 2 to 3 days it should be clear and you can either bottle using carb drops, or rack carefully to a sanitised bottling bucket for bulk priming and then bottling. Although the beer will look clean, there should be enough yeast left in suspension to carb up the bottles, unless you've conditioned for an extended period before hand. If you did, think about adding some more yeast at bottling time.
 
Thanks Guys, so maybe I am confusing Secondary Fermentation with Secondary Conditioning,

Bribie G your right Sydney is not the best temperature at the moment to try and get a cold environment, but hopefully with my engineering knowledge i can knock something together to keep things cool.
Previously 9 days was the longest i left my brew in the fermenter, the instructions i got from my local brewstore was 7-9 days or once the airlock was bubbling less than once per minute, i kinda panicked and didnt ant to ruin the beer by over fermenting as it was sitting around 24-25 degrees Celsius

I have never heard of adding gelatine to the mix, what does this do? not asking for a detailed scientific breakdown but any sort of description would be great.


I suppose really yeah i just want the clearest beer i can get, so maybe if i take the beer from the trub and put in a secondary container and bulk prime or use the drops, im bottling up around 23L of 500ml bottles.
I had head adding irish moss also clears up your cloudy brew, around 1tsp per 5Gallon.
once primed in the secondary container i can then bottle, or from your experience should i just bulk prime in the primary fermenter?
 
Geordie_Oz said:
Thanks Guys, so maybe I am confusing Secondary Fermentation with Secondary Conditioning,

Bribie G your right Sydney is not the best temperature at the moment to try and get a cold environment, but hopefully with my engineering knowledge i can knock something together to keep things cool.
Previously 9 days was the longest i left my brew in the fermenter, the instructions i got from my local brewstore was 7-9 days or once the airlock was bubbling less than once per minute, i kinda panicked and didnt ant to ruin the beer by over fermenting as it was sitting around 24-25 degrees Celsius

I have never heard of adding gelatine to the mix, what does this do? not asking for a detailed scientific breakdown but any sort of description would be great.


I suppose really yeah i just want the clearest beer i can get, so maybe if i take the beer from the trub and put in a secondary container and bulk prime or use the drops, im bottling up around 23L of 500ml bottles.
I had head adding irish moss also clears up your cloudy brew, around 1tsp per 5Gallon.
once primed in the secondary container i can then bottle, or from your experience should i just bulk prime in the primary fermenter?
For starters, stop going to the home brew shop who told you to bottle when the airlock slowed down. That is very poor practice and can be extremely dangerous (bottle bombs).

By transferring to a 2nd fermenter, you will actually result in cloudier beer than just bottling from the primary fermenter as you have just stirred up the beer which was happily settling out. You will also cause some level of oxidation, whether it be undetectable or not and there is a greater risk of an infection from using another vessel. Keep it simple. You can experiment with other stuff once the basics are down.

The only feasible reasons to transfer to a 2nd fermenter in my opinion are if you are conditioning your beer for a long time (> about 4 weeks post fermentation), bulk priming or adding something like fruit. This still exposes you to oxidation and infection risks though.

Happy brewing.
 
Gelatine basically just drops yeast out, and some other haze forming particles. I've used it before, but found that it made the yeast sediment fluffy and easily disturbed. Maybe I used too much, I don't know, but that defeated the purpose in my mind. In any case, I much prefer Isinglass now; it does the same thing as gelatine but the sediment stays firm. I also add Polyclar to remove chill haze and end up with very clear beer in the glass.

Both these agents are added to the beer while it is in the fermenter, sitting in a fridge at 0C. They don't work as well at fermenting temps. I don't rack to a secondary fermenter, never have except for bulk priming. The fridge is a dedicated fermentation fridge plugged into an external temp controller, probably the simplest way to achieve decent temperature control in a home brewing situation.
 
Rocker1986 said:
The fridge is a dedicated fermentation fridge plugged into an external temp controller, probably the simplest way to achieve decent temperature control in a home brewing situation.
+1

I have one of these buggers sitting on top of my brew fridge and the probe simply sits inside the fridge, firmly attached to the side of the fermenter. Set it to 17deg, plug the fridge into the temp controller, and you're done.
 
danestead said:
For starters, stop going to the home brew shop who told you to bottle when the airlock slowed down. That is very poor practice and can be extremely dangerous (bottle bombs).

By transferring to a 2nd fermenter, you will actually result in cloudier beer than just bottling from the primary fermenter as you have just stirred up the beer which was happily settling out. You will also cause some level of oxidation, whether it be undetectable or not and there is a greater risk of an infection from using another vessel. Keep it simple. You can experiment with other stuff once the basics are down.

The only feasible reasons to transfer to a 2nd fermenter in my opinion are if you are conditioning your beer for a long time (> about 4 weeks post fermentation), bulk priming or adding something like fruit. This still exposes you to oxidation and infection risks though.

Happy brewing.
Thanks Danestead, so i presume checking the gravity level is best method to see if the yeast is done doing what it does..not relying on looking at the airlock bubbling away.
I still have a lot to learn in this game, i presume that is what i was told from the "Experts" so why think anything else.


Thanks Guys, im learning a lot here, i have spent so much time just trawling blog sites with so many questions in my head.

i just have my recipe set in my head to make this "awesome beer" i just want to get it right or as close as i can to being right in the first couple of attempts, without making any schoolboy errors along the way.
i really appreciate everyones advice

Geordie_Oz
 
Geordie_Oz said:
Thanks Danestead, so i presume checking the gravity level is best method to see if the yeast is done doing what it does..not relying on looking at the airlock bubbling away.
I still have a lot to learn in this game, i presume that is what i was told from the "Experts" so why think anything else.


Thanks Guys, im learning a lot here, i have spent so much time just trawling blog sites with so many questions in my head.

i just have my recipe set in my head to make this "awesome beer" i just want to get it right or as close as i can to being right in the first couple of attempts, without making any schoolboy errors along the way.
i really appreciate everyones advice

Geordie_Oz
You are correct that checking gravity is the only reliable method of determining state of fermentation. The airlock doesn't serve much purpose tbh. It mainly stresses brewers out for no reason. A lot of brewers don't use an airlock, they use gladwrap or I used to just put a sanitised bottle cap over the hole to stop stuff dropping in, but that's another topic.

It is great you listened to the 'experts', we have all done that at some stage however you will quickly find that there are a lot of people out there, be it staff in shops or forum members who will give you ideas which are poor practice.
 
The best reason for racking to a second vessel,(notice- not calling it secondary or fermenter) is to bulk prime for carbonation in the bottle, ANY MIX OF BOTTLE SIZES.
 
Also, I find I learn a heck of a lot from the Brewing Network podcasts. You can download them for free and listen to them at home or on the way to work or whatever. Those hosts are actual experts and can answer questions on absolutely everything brewing related.

It's also worth noting, even those experts like John Palmer who have written books, have published outdated info in earlier editions of their books. Brewing constantly evolves and new research etc is done and some old info can get outdated or corrected. The books however, in general are very very good. How to Brew is a good starter and the old edition is available online for free.
 
if you gladwrap the lid wont the built up CO2 just burst through ? Anyway im not going to get into that one, like you said, a different topic.

Thanks Superstock, that was my original plan to just use the second vessel to bulk prime, to separate the beer from the sediment in the first vessel, but i will see how things go, i will have a bit of trial and error to see what works best for me.

Thanks again guys
 
No mate the OC2 pushes its way out under where the gladwrap is held on by elastic. Same with a conventional lid- sometimes it isnt sealed 100% and the Co2 will go out of their rather than the airlock. Many people have been caught out thinking their brew is stuffed because the airlock isnt bubbling where the CO2 is just escaping elsewhere.

Gravity measurements are the only way to accurately see where fermentation stops.

At this stage I suggest keep it simple and dont use secondary. In fact I never use it. The No1 thing you should be looking at is getting a fridge and temp controller, this will give your beer the best chance of being at its best and the ability to cold crash will do the most for clearing your beer than anything else.

Ive fucked around with gelatin and filtering etc. but dont bother anymore- hassle>benefit IMO.

A decent cold crash and some time spent maturing in cold conditions along with a clean ferment give me more than enough clarity in my beers.
 
Cling wrap is the way to go. CO2 molecules are incredibly tiny as you can imagine and they work their way out.
Another benefit is that you now have a window into the brew, so when it eventually looks like this then it's probably ready for kegging or bottling. :p

clear in fermenter.jpg

Hey what part of Geordieland? You're not a Mackem are you?
I'm from West Denton originally.
 
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