Purpose of Transferring Beer?

[Philipek]

Hi all.

When I got into this hobby 3 months ago, all I wanted to do was make beer. I didn't realise I would become an amateur chemist, biochemis, and engineer, and that my experience of beer would change from recreational to almost spiritual. Not complaining though.

I have a few different but linked questions.

I have used a few books to guide me in my newbie-dom: Dave Line's Brewing Beers Like Those you Buy, Graham Wheeler's, Brew your own British Real Ale, and John Palmer's How to Brew.

Graham Wheeler says that it is very bad practise to bottle straight from the primary. For this reason, I'm going to take up the practise of using a secondary fermenter or bright tank. He says that you really don't want the yeasty head to collapse back into the beer. However, according to John Palmer, a secondary vessel isn't necessary, and this seems to be the prevailing attitude amongst many US home brewers. In contrast to Mr. Wheeler's instructions, John Palmer says that one should wait until after the head has collapsed back into the beer.

I'd like to ask what the purpose is of Mr. Wheeler's method of transferring the beer in the middle of fermentation and then again to a maturation barrel before it goes into the bottles or the keg.

I think I have the answer, but I would like to hear what other experienced and more knowledgeable brewers have to say.

I'm guessing it's because Graham Wheeler uses open fermentation. Also, on this forum, he has given lots of information on traditional British ale yeasts that actually top ferment, whereas many brewers use a closed fermentation system and ale yeasts that hang out on top of the beer for a little while then stick to bottom of the fermenter like glue.

Finally, does anyone use a polypin as a secondary fermentation vessel as per Dave Line's methods? If he did it, it must be good, although I know many brewers don't like using plastic because it is oxygen permeable not to mention the leeching of horrible chemicals.

[Invalid Stout]

Finally, does anyone use a polypin as a secondary fermentation vessel as per Dave Line's methods? If he did it, it must be good, although I know many brewers don't like using plastic because it is oxygen permeable not to mention the leeching of horrible chemicals.

I don't use polypins, but these are not anything to worry about. They are food grade plastic so no horrible chemicals are going to leach into your beer. Yes, plastic is oxygen permeable but that's over a period of many months (try opening a 2 year old bottle of cola...).

[Philipek]

Thanks for reassuring me on the polypin question.

By the way, Invalid Stout is a great forum name.

[rick_huggins]

Personally I like to get my beer away from the trub on the bottom of my FV1 as soon as primary is complete.

I then rack into a 2nd where I've left most of the kak behind and I've less chance off cloudy beer when I come to keg/bottle.

Just a personal thing that made sense to me really

Rick

[Philipek]

Thanks, Chris, for the really detailed information about secondary. After only a few weeks into homebrewing, I began to realize that there were almost as many ways to brew as there are brewers.

Thanks Rick. From what you said, it would seem that the main benefit from a secondary is clear beer. A benefit that occurs to me is that it frees up the primary fermenter for another batch.

Why does Graham Wheeler ferment his beer in four different vessels? According to BYOBRA (sounds like a cross between Oprah and Mum-Ra), he racks the beer to another vessel in the middle of fermentation, then racks again to secondary, then barrels the beer to mature before bottling. This seems excessive, especially when one can get delicious beer by just leaving it the primary for 3 weeks, but I know there must be some sound reasoning behind it.

Hang on a moment.

Sorry about that, I just ordered Home Brewing: the CAMRA guide.

I'm still on the yeast version of bike stabilizers. I'm using dry yeasts, primarily S-04, but I've also tried Nottingham. I bought a few sachets of Coopers because of what I read about its character, apparently a woody flavour, whereas the other two are very clean. I wanted to taste what that was like. I would like to graduate to liquid yeasts and yeast harvesting some day. I also like the idea of turning up at a brewery and walking away with a litre of yeast.

Personally I find that 10-14 days in the primary achieves all the objectives of primary and bulk secondary fermentation. In most cases fermentation is complete after 3-7 and during the remaining 3-7 days the yeast has plenty of time to clean up the by products of fermentation and leave it in good condition to be matured in the bottle.

What gravity beer are you brewing that you can bottle after only 14 days? I have always left my beers 2 days shy of 3 weeks. I try to brew 4.5% beers I've never had carbonation problems, but now you've got me slightly worried.

Also, what yeast do you use?

Finally, what is a pressure barrel? They sound intriguing. You can't get them out here in Canada, but I'm coming back to Blighty at the end of the summer and am hoping to take a beer engine back with me. I may take a pressure barrel too and a case of Old Peculiar.

[Parva]

There is no 'one answer covers all' for this. I primary for 10-14 days and go straight to keg figuring that it's less risky than chancing oxidation by moving it to a secondary FV whereas others (such as Rick) do secondary their beer. It's a case of whatever works for you and you can only find this out by using trial and error and discovering what works for you.

Ultimately, the whole process can be analyzed to death but what works for one person may completely fail for another, brewing is an art aswell as a science.

[adm]

I do the same as Parva......except for really high gravity beers were I will give them extedned time in a secondary to age.

I use corny kegs for serving and find that 2 weeks in the FV, then a decent amount of time sitting in the keg before serving gives crystal clear beer - I think the secret is not to rush it and the yeast falls out of suspension by itself. Even my Witbier becomes KristalWit after a few weeks.....(which isn't a problem as there's normally only a bit left by then....)

[Hawkinspm]

I don't move to secondary if kegging, same as many people here I keg after 10-14 days in primary.

For bottling I do tend to move to a bottling bucket - I just found this makes it much easier to add sugar for conditioning ( I boil up some beer and dissolve the sugar in ) as you can give it a good stir without moving any yeast. This means every bottle will be carbonated exactly the same.

I learnt this after not stirring the sugar solution in once - a few bottles when opened proceeded to empty themselves in a spectacular style - 1 pint of beer straight up in the air!! I was lucky the bottles held during conditioning on these I think..

Think people have had success with both methods, so becomes a personal preference. Mine is now to keg when possible so I dont have to do this or wash 40 bottles!!

Good luck
Paul

[Mitchamitri]

Too much info can be worrying - I thought I just chucked the yeast in, kegged it after a week or so (ie after its stopped plus a bit), then drunk it 2 weeks later (or 1 week later because I am impatient and Screaming Mimi is a lovely pint). For anything I'm bottling I was going to rack off after 7 days, then bottle after another 7 days.

WHats all this worrying business about oxygen etc?

[BEZ]

Hi
That seems logical what mitchamiti says, me being the expert having been brewing for 48 hours.
BEZ

[Philipek]

There is no 'one answer covers all' for this.

Absolutely. This became very clear within the first few weeks of my brewing.

Ultimately, the whole process can be analyzed to death but what works for one person may completely fail for another, brewing is an art aswell as a science.

I'm quite fond of analyzing things, if not to death, then at least until they are very sick. As I said, I've been bottling straight from the primary, and it's given me satisfactory results so far. I was thinking of grabbing a secondary for a couple of reasons. One being that some decent kit has come my way, I can buy a 20 litre carboy to free up the 33 litre carboy for another brew. Another reason is that I haven't tried it before and maybe this will work for me better than my previous method. Finally, my beer is a tiny bit hazy. I've not got a problem with this at all, it doesn't seem to affect the flavour, but it might be nice to present a friend with a crystal clear pint for ego purposes. I am given to understand that cornies work preturnaturally well in clearing beer.

I was thinking of using polypins to dispense a budget version of real ale with decreased risk of oxygenation. I've been following the threads here on polypin management. Unfortunately, they are as rare as rocking horse crap out here. At least the spigot caps are, and pressure barrels do not exist here. I don't really want to get cornies. They can be had for a decent price but then I'd have to invest CO2 and pressure guages and things like that. I'd rather spend that cash on a dedicated brew fridge, a couple of sacks of MO and a few pounds of fuggles.

Finally, I was intrigued with Graham Wheeler's habit of racking beer in the middle of fermentation as outlined in BYOBRA. I ordered his book on homebrewing to find out the benefits of this practice.