Should or Should'nt???

[Gugs44]

Wondering should I rack my AG Irish red to secondary fermenrter or leave it in primary and condition in bottles??

Will be tranfering to second FV on bottling day because going to batch prime this time round

Cheers

Gugs44

[DEMPSEY]

Personally I would leave it in primary. Doing transfers allows the chance of adding oxygen and since you plan to transfer to a bottling bucket that is another transfer. People differ on this. When going to the bottling bucket have the sugars dissolved already in the bucket and pour the fresh beer in with the tube all the way to the bottom thus it quickly is filling under the beer flowing into the bucket. Slowly and lightly stir in the sugar so as to add minimal amount of air getting stirred in. Bottle away. 

[Gugs44]

Ya I dont wanna be exposing it too much so think I will go with that

Thanks

[Garry]

If you're worried about clarity, you can cool the FV down as much as you can a few days before bottling and it will help it to settle out. Ideally 4°C for 3-4 days. I just strap some frozen 1L bottles of water to the FV.

[acaoshes]

@Garry
Probably a stupid question but here I go.
What happens to the residual yeast in the FV when it is kept at a low temp for several days. Does it fall out of solution also?
I'm asking as bottle conditioning needs residual levels of yeast to convert the priming sugars and if the yeast falls out of solution it won't be transferred to the bottles.

[Garry]

@Garry
Probably a stupid question but here I go.
What happens to the residual yeast in the FV when it is kept at a low temp for several days. Does it fall out of solution also?
I'm asking as bottle conditioning needs residual levels of yeast to convert the priming sugars and if the yeast falls out of solution it won't be transferred to the bottles.

Not all the yeast drops out. There will still be enough yeast left to eat up the priming sugar in the bottle 

[DEMPSEY]

Trust me crash cooling will drop out the yeast in suspension and help clear it up but you WILL always have plenty of yeast left for bottle conditioning.

[Eoin]

I'd say that it really depends on your pitching rate. There was a time when I did kits and 20l batches where I'd simply leave the beer 4-6 weeks in the fermenter and not worry, but I'd only have added a single pack of dried yeast. Nowadays I do larger batches of 60l and I pitch much more yeast, the correct amount of yeast in fact. I find if you under pitch as in the first instance I discussed you get away with a lot more time on the yeast. If I'm lazy and leave it these days the beer suffers. I find I get yeast bite and the beer is not as clean as it should be. I find the threshold to be about 16-21 days. This is long enough for primary and clearing with no off-flavours. Most homebrew is massively under pitched and this is where the confusion arises. Not exactly the question, but I hope it helps. I have only done secondary once, to dry hop. Otherwise I do extended primary.

Sent using a complex system of semaphore and ninjas.

[brenmurph]

Personally I would leave it in primary. Doing transfers allows the chance of adding oxygen and since you plan to transfer to a bottling bucket that is another transfer. People differ on this. When going to the bottling bucket have the sugars dissolved already in the bucket and pour the fresh beer in with the tube all the way to the bottom thus it quickly is filling under the beer flowing into the bucket. Slowly and lightly stir in the sugar so as to add minimal amount of air getting stirred in. Bottle away. 

if u have co2 on hand just fill the bucket with co2 to expell air. Co2 is heavy and drops instantly (fill a balloon with co2 and see how it drops to the floor fast) covering the beer being transferred. Follow dempseys advice above.
Im a believer that Air rather than oxygen is the problem based on that fact that yeast are oxygen scavengers and will eat up the oxygen to boost their metabolism and reproduction rate ( open to clarification) however AIR naturally contains wild yeast and bacteria which can damage your beer rather than oxygen which may or may not depending on yeast activity.

[UpsidedownA (Andrew)]

Personally I would leave it in primary. Doing transfers allows the chance of adding oxygen and since you plan to transfer to a bottling bucket that is another transfer. People differ on this. When going to the bottling bucket have the sugars dissolved already in the bucket and pour the fresh beer in with the tube all the way to the bottom thus it quickly is filling under the beer flowing into the bucket. Slowly and lightly stir in the sugar so as to add minimal amount of air getting stirred in. Bottle away. 

if u have co2 on hand just fill the bucket with co2 to expell air. Co2 is heavy and drops instantly (fill a balloon with co2 and see how it drops to the floor fast) covering the beer being transferred. Follow dempseys advice above.
Im a believer that Air rather than oxygen is the problem based on that fact that yeast are oxygen scavengers and will eat up the oxygen to boost their metabolism and reproduction rate ( open to clarification) however AIR naturally contains wild yeast and bacteria which can damage your beer rather than oxygen which may or may not depending on yeast activity.

Just to add to this... I'm with Brendan that O2 is not a problem because yeast scavange up the oxygen. However, moving the beer disturbs it and you can lose volatile aromatic compounds. On the other hand, I think it's a good idea to get it off the yeast for a couple of reasons. One) you can harvest the yeast and get it into the fridge or somewhere safe for your next batch. Two) every time you move it, you clear the beer a little bit more.

[RichC]

I know this is off topic and I know I've posted it before but if Gugs is a comitted bottler he needs to see this
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/double-barrel-bottling-now-twice-fast-257264/
This combined with a bottling tree, vinator and dip tube result in a speedy, efficient and waste free bottling day. The speedup from the extra little bottler alone is huge!