Primary v Secondary. Wondering what you guys out there average for time spent in both? Also can you just add the sugar in the secondary after its crash cooled and stir it in or do you still need to rack to a new vessel before bottling?
I have got into a routine now, for all my ales (never done a lager):
- leave beer in primary for 2 weeks
- rack to a secondary, cold condition in the fridge for 1 week
- add dex to another fermenter, rack beer from secondary into this one, and bottle.
I rack to secondary for 2 reasons:
1. After 1 week in the fridge, beer comes out very clear, or at least clear enough for me, even without finings. I tried gelatine once, and got no noticeable improvement compared to cold conditioning alone.
2. I always harvest yeast from the secondary. In the primary, the yeast cake is full of hot break, cold break and hop trub. Out of the secondary, it is nice and clean. OK, perhaps I should try to minimise puting trub into the primary, but i hate to waste beer and after chilling I pour the kettle into the fermenter through a strainer - this keeps out most of the hop sludge but a lot of the break gets through. But the Irish moss still seems to work in the fermenter and it all drops to the bottom.