Secondary fermentation methods.

[StuF]

Just wondering what way the South Kildare crew do their secondary fermentation. Do you religiously use glass or sometimes use plastic? Do you religiously secondary at all?
If not doing a very long secondary is plastic ok to use? I've got a pale ale in secondary in plastic as of yesterday ( rubber bung from glass carboy had perished a bit ). Will probably just do a 10 day and will be dry hopping for 4.
Got to improve my skills if i'm to catch up with all ye award winning wizards!

[baphomite51]

secondary is a bit of a waste of time. the big downside to it is your oxygenating your beer when your transfering it and this isnt good for hoppy beers. most decent brewers tend to ferment their beers to their FG in about 5 days to a week (depending on yeast strain and other things) then dry hop usually for no more than 5 days ( in my opinion it only takes about 2 or 3 days for dry hopping with large amounts, this is backed up by an experiment by bruloshepher) this is all done in the primary vessel and then its transferred to your keg or bottling bucket if your bottling, if your fining add on another 2-3 days. so its between 7-13 days in primary and then into your serving vessel. PS im not a Kildare brewer but have one a medal or two

[auralabuse]

So you dry hop on top of the trub and all in the primary?. Interesting, when you say "if your fining" I presume you mean adding a clearing agent post boil?, if so what do you use?, sorry for the basic questions, clear beer eludes me thus far

[StuF]

secondary is a bit of a waste of time. the big downside to it is your oxygenating your beer when your transfering it and this isnt good for hoppy beers. most decent brewers tend to ferment their beers to their FG in about 5 days to a week (depending on yeast strain and other things) then dry hop usually for no more than 5 days ( in my opinion it only takes about 2 or 3 days for dry hopping with large amounts, this is backed up by an experiment by bruloshepher) this is all done in the primary vessel and then its transferred to your keg or bottling bucket if your bottling, if your fining add on another 2-3 days. so its between 7-13 days in primary and then into your serving vessel. PS im not a Kildare brewer but have one a medal or two

Thanks for the info. My current plan is to bottle straight from my secondary as its a standard FV with a tap. If standard practise is to transfer to a bottling bucket ny then surely I wont have exposed it to more oxygen than normal?
I have only done secondary a couple of times. Since i'm getting back into homebrewing now and just started BIAB i'm trying a few things for myself as experiments. I've read a lot of conflicting views on secondary, some swear by it, some dont bother.
I had thought there were potential negative effects to adding hops to the primary but i guess not, ill give this a try in the future perhaps.

[jawalemon]

secondary is a bit of a waste of time. the big downside to it is your oxygenating your beer when your transfering it and this isnt good for hoppy beers. most decent brewers tend to ferment their beers to their FG in about 5 days to a week (depending on yeast strain and other things) then dry hop usually for no more than 5 days ( in my opinion it only takes about 2 or 3 days for dry hopping with large amounts, this is backed up by an experiment by bruloshepher) this is all done in the primary vessel and then its transferred to your keg or bottling bucket if your bottling, if your fining add on another 2-3 days. so its between 7-13 days in primary and then into your serving vessel. PS im not a Kildare brewer but have one a medal or two

Do you cold crash before dry hopping?

[baphomite51]

@ auralabuse: yup i just throw the hops straight on top of the trub in primary.  I've recently started using gelatin which is just amazing it gives you clear beer in 2 days which greatly reduces the time your beer is drinkable, only thing is you need a fridge or freezer to get your beer down to around 3-5C for it to work. if your beer isnt clearing just give it more time in the bottle in fridge most of the time it will clear it right up. in all honesty hoppy beer only reach their peak after about 5 weeks of conditioning and after 5 weeks in the fridge they should be nice and clear

@ StuF: transfering it to a bottling bucket is fine but you want to get it into the bottles as fast as possible so the yeast start scavaging the oxygen, leave it in your primary late as possible before you bottle because there is a layer of CO2 protecting it which you dont have in your bottling bucket. some big breweries actually believe that adding hops just at the end of fermentation in primary is very beneficial 1. because it scavenges the oxygen from the hops which is great for us homebrewers and 2 supposedly the yeast interact with the hop oils creating more complex flavours, the only negative effect of adding hops to primary is the yeast can blow off some of the hop aroma but this can be counteracted with a bigger dry hop.

@ jawalemon: cold crashing and fining with gelatin is somethin iv been playing around with iv done it with beers with no dry hops and its been great, my current batch now is dry hopping in primary im gonna cold crash it to 3C tonight then add my gelatin in the morning straight to the primary with hops and all, hoping i get a nice fast clear beer this way, iv heard good things about this method. previously i didn cold crash my hoppy beers so they were very hazy for a long time which effected the flavour.

[StuF]

Great info baphomite51. Thanks.
Be a while before I have the space for a fridge but will defo give gelatine a shot when i do 
I was also under the impression that haze didn't really affect the flavour of the beer, is this not the case?
I'm getting a reasonable amount of airlock activity in secondary right now so hopefully there's still a layer of CO2 there.

[baphomite51]

Great info baphomite51. Thanks.
Be a while before I have the space for a fridge but will defo give gelatine a shot when i do 
I was also under the impression that haze didn't really affect the flavour of the beer, is this not the case?
I'm getting a reasonable amount of airlock activity in secondary right now so hopefully there's still a layer of CO2 there.

it can depend on the type of haze but most of the time beer tastes better when its clear, the haze is usually bad stuff like tannins and yeast which taste bad, ill admitt some really hoppy stuff from omnipollo and to/ol tast great hazy and also heffeweizen beers it just depends on the haze.

[Will_D]

Well as there is THE major National Comp. comming up soon (next year is not long away) the various theorys can be put to the judges tables for evaluation!

[hassettbrew]

Hey StuF, I don't know about award winning wizards  but heres what I do, I rack to secondary after the fermentation is complete and do my diacetyl rest ,then I will move my plastic jerry can (food grade, you will know this by the fork and knife symbols) to a cooler envoirnment more suitable for secondary as per beer. Yes I use plastic to ferment and condition, I don't relligiously do this , its just what I have at the moment. I owuld love to have stainless all de way but tbh ive not had a problem with plastic so far. I use a keggle to boil and I am in the process of building a stainless mash tun with insulation and luvly wood work on the outside cos thats is what I do for dollars. Hope this is a help and sorry for slow reply

[StuF]

Thanks for the reply Hassettbrew  that mash tun sounds the business! I still don't have a stand alone mash tun, still doing BIAB for now.