No Secondary For Wheat Beer?

[McAvinbrew]

So as the title suggests Im looking to see what the consensus is on secondary fermentation for a wheat beer. I see online a lot say that once wheat beer is done fermenting get it ready for drinking as wheat beers are bet when young.

I ask because I racked my first all grain into the secondary the other day and as usual I knocked back the brew in the thief after checking the gravity, to get an idea of how its tasting. And Holy cow it was good. My first All Grain and I reckon its the best I've ever done, following some advice on here I went exclusively with Citra hops and they seem to have worked great, lovely fruity notes exactly what I wanted. So Im pretty eager to get it kegged up and start drinking it asap.

As usual any words of wisdom will be appreciated.

 

[SeniorChief]

I am doing my 3rd Wheat Beer tomorrow also and both previous times I have put it into the secondary. I also have added 10 oz of passion fruit concentrate (the wife's loves it). It has came out really well. I mashed for 20 minutes at 113 degrees then up to 156 for 30 min. I also used Citra because of the fruitiness works well with the passion fruit. My yeast was WLP029 German/Kolsch. It worked so well even after I racked to the Secondary. So for my experience it has worked well.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

wheat is a tricky beer to master, it can come out bland tasting or grainy, or very good as you mentioned so hats off to the great beer you brewed. as far as a secondary Ive stopped that many years ago, I dry hop and add other fruits to the primary or keg, a secondary is kind of an old school process, nothing wrong with it, you just "in my opinion" don't need it in any ales

 

[McAvinbrew]

I always thought the secondary was for clarity and since wheat is cloudy already maybe not necessary.

I'm thinking of trying another wheat tomorrow and see how things turn out. Was going to try 5lb wheat, 2lb Maris Otter, 1lb Vienna, 1lb Victory and 1lb Pilsner. With Cascade and Willamette Hops. I have almost no idea how it will turn out but I'm hoping for something a little more hoppy than the last. If it goes poorly I reckon I will do what was recommended here and do a few SMASH brews until I start to get things nice and consistent.

At the moment I will just enjoy the all grain process and good results will be the icing on the cake. If all else fails at least the Smoked Jerky turned out well today :lol: :lol:

 

[jeffpn]

Uh, the jerky forum is the second door down the hall! :lol:

I'm way overdue on my jerky. Ran out about a month ago.

 

[McAvinbrew]

I'll argue jerky is relevant, whats better than a cold homebrew and some homemade jerky after a day of brewing.

 

[Nosybear]

Okay, Nosy's weighing in.... Secondary is not needed for any beer where you aren't going to leave it on the yeast cake for more than several months at room temperature. It's a clarification step, that's all. You rack your beer off the yeast cake to leave the trub behind. You leave a second, smaller mass of trub behind in the secondary fermenter, leading to cleaner beer in the bottling bucket. Secondary fermentation is a misnomer - you aren't fermenting anything in secondary, you're just waiting for the yeast to drop out. Again, the only exception is if you're going to leave the beer on the yeast long enough for the yeast to begin to autolyze, die and release meaty, soy-sauce flavors into the beer and that normally takes months.

 

[McAvinbrew]

Thanks Nosybear.

So all those times Ive racked to a secondary Ive just been wasting my time and risking contamination. Well Im just going to try a few with just a primary. Thanks for the tip

 

[Blackmuse]

+1 on no secondary with wheat beer. I rarely secondary at all anymore.

 

[Donder]

Same here. Most of the times, except when the beer needs to ferment long. A process called autolyse can occur and ruin your beer. So then a secondairy is usefull for those beers.

But usually I dont use it anymore. Especially not on a Wheat beer because those don't have to be clear necessary. Beside that they ferment relatively fast. It introduces an risk of infection and oxidation without real purpose.
With other beers I use Carrageenan and a pump with a 50 micron filter. Still big enough to let the yeast though but small enough to filter the trub. Which gives me very clear beer without using a secondary.