Um Dont Know What Its Called

[T_Kiwi]

As the title states, i dont know what its called but i want to put my fermented beer into another fermenter for another few days to clear it up more etc, how do i do this apart from the obvious of transferring with minimal swirl etc. is it ok to let the oxygen get to it while transferring?

 

[beerdrinkingbob]

do a search on racking to a secondary and you should be away

 

[T_Kiwi]

do a search on racking and you should be away

Roger that, cheers

 

[pdfarrell]

Racking Link

 

[marksfish]

it is called racking to secondry, very over-rated btw. and if you do it you should try to prevent as much oxygen pick up as you can.

 

[T_Kiwi]

by the looks of it, i shouldnt rack, i will be putting 20 litres of fermented beer into a 25 litre container, i will add finnings and leave till thursday when i buy another keg then gelatine and carb up.

 

[T_Kiwi]

BTW my first brew i kegged a few days ago using the above technique, minus racking, gave me crystal clear beer and great head and great taste. i think im sticking to that method, i would take a pic but im always too pissed by the time i remember to lol

 

[marksfish]

by the looks of it, i shouldnt rack, i will be putting 20 litres of fermented beer into a 25 litre container, i will add finnings and leave till thursday when i buy another keg then gelatine and carb up.

or you can leave it until you get another keg.

 

[T_Kiwi]

or you can leave it until you get another keg.

yes, thats what i meant, sorry for any confusion from that post

 

[crozdog]

very over-rated btw.

Very subjective comment that. Wether it is over rated or not depends on what the individual brewers goal is for using racking.

I say that as Racking can be used for many things apart from clarifying the beer including:
- freeing up fermenter space
- providing access to the yeast cake to use for another beer
- removing beer from yeastcake to reduce possibility of autolysis / off flavours
- transferring the beer into a container that better fits into fridge for lagering (cubes or jerrycans pack in better allowing more than 1 beer to be "processed" at once)

marksfish, as far as clarifying goes (if that is what you were loofing for) racking to secondary may not have delivered what you were expecting due to your yeast strain choice. Some strains drop out really quick once fermentation is complete while others take a lot longer. In the latter case crash cooling and finning will help clear the beer.

 

[NickB]

For me, racking to a secondary fermenter didn't seem to be of benefit. this may vary for you, but for me, keeping the beer in primary with little chance of oxygenation, gave me the best result. If you want to rack to secondary, purge the receiving vessel with CO2, then rack with minimal splashage as possible. Rest at as close to 0C as possible or a week or six, then to keg or bottle.

From experience, secondary does nothing for me, however I do filter and keg my beers. If you bottle straight from primary (or secondary in this case) then sure, you'll likely find that your beers are clearer and have less sedement than those bottled from primary.

Whatever way you do it, condition or lager your kegs for 4-6 weeks to get the best beer possible.

Cheers

 

[mkstalen]

I don't rack for secondary fermentation but I do rack to a jerry can style plastic cube for crash chilling and lagering since the jerry can will fit in my keg fridge. (well it will unless I buy any more kegs, but 2's enough for now).

 

[NickB]

Sorry Stienberg, but no matter if you're crash chilling, or secondarying (?) or racking etc, it's all the same thing. Secondary fermentation, is generally a clearing stage, and one that lets the residual sugars (if any) in a ferment, ferment out so you can hit FG. For me, it has not been necessary. If you don't rush your beers through primary, IMHO you should not need a secondary, unless you don't have the fridge space.

Cheers