To secondary or not to secondary, that is the question

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I have always racked to a secondary, however if the specific gravity is at my target final is there any benefit to rack?
 
Only benefit would be pulling it off the yeast or trub if conditioning longer and possibly clarity, but in my opinion if its done and your thirsty, just drink it lol
 
I rack mine to secondary for two reasons, to get the beer off the trub because I generally tend to age longer than two weeks and to make sure the bottled beer is cleaner. Bonus: If I'm cold-conditioning, the five gallon carboys fit a lot better in my fridge than the six gallon ones. There's nothing that says you have to and by racking you're theoretically exposing your beer to contaminants and oxygen. That said, I've never had trouble with it. One very important part of brewing: Know why you're doing what you do. Don't just do it because Palmer or Nosybear or Chessking or Larry Brewer said it was a good thing to do, know why you're doing it. I know why I rack to secondary. If you choose not to, you should know why you think that is a better way of making beer. We both may be right based on our systems and processes.
 
I've racked every batch for a week or two after fermentation and before bottling for clarify. Since I've never bottled straight from primary, I can't confirm or deny the benefit, but based on the "secondary trub", I typically see, I have to imagine there is benefit relative to clarity.... so that is why I continue to do it.
 
I keep it in the primary for three weeks at least, then keg. If you have a deep enough pipeline, the beer will clarify, regardless to the vessel it is in. Now if you plan to keep it in a fermenter for an extended time, then removing it from the yeast may be beneficial, but for a normal batch you can just let it settle out in the primary. The yeast may still be working some. Also there is one less vessel to clean.
That being said, if you want to secondary, and you feel it makes your beer better, then it does.
 
My actual process is to ferment for 7 to 10 days, in most cases in my brews might have a few bubbles come up but any longer doesn't change the gravity, then I pull the beer off into a conditioning keg at 35, let that sit for 3 to 4 days, sometimes my conditioning keg will be dry hopped , then I filter and pull it into the final keg to carb, so the whole process takes 15 to 20 days before drinking.

with that said I have been known to ferment in 5 days and be drinking it in 7 lol
 
As an experiment, I moved mu previous patch to secondary after 4 days. We will see, what happens :)
At the moment, it's fermenting as nothing had happened. I can see some sediment at the bottom but this is really thin and looks like retired yeast. I am going to dry-hop this patch too.

I have a second patch but I am not sure am I going to move it or not. More I read about it, more confused I get.
Maybe I toss a coin or something. :)

Cheers!
 
ooo said:
More I read about it, more confused I get.
Maybe I toss a coin or something. :)

I tried reading up on it once - nearly drove me mad. As long as you trust your sterilization, as far as I can tell the only other negative with using a secondary is oxygen contact. And that you can minimize.

Neither way is wrong, just comes down to personal preference.

I use a secondary on most of my brews, but have a friend who hardly ever does. We both make good beer.
 
Only if you are bottling and seeking to clear out the beer or you are adding a tincture for additional flavoring.
 

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