aging in secondary

[NewBrewerCK]

What exactly is the purpose of aging beer in the secondary? What happens during this time that doesn't occur with age in the bottles?

[EBW]

It gives the beer a chance to let particulates and flocculent yeast settle out so that less of it ends up in the botle. You're probably saying " So what, why cant I just leave it in primary annother week?" The reason is that leavng it on primary sediment for the extra week can cause some off flavors to show up in the beer.

Want it even clearer? Try racking a third time and cold crash it near 32 degrees for a couple more weeks. You'll see alot less sediment in the finished product. Unless of coure, you enjoy your beer with a good cloud of tasty yeast in it.


~:>

-EBW-

[corkybstewart]

It gives the beer a chance to let particulates and flocculent yeast settle out so that less of it ends up in the botle. You're probably saying " So what, why cant I just leave it in primary annother week?" The reason is that leavng it on primary sediment for the extra week can cause some off flavors to show up in the beer.

Want it even clearer? Try racking a third time and cold crash it near 32 degrees for a couple more weeks. You'll see alot less sediment in the finished product. Unless of coure, you enjoy your beer with a good cloud of tasty yeast in it.


~:>

-EBW-
Not meaning to be contrary here but I've left beer in primary for a month with no off flavors. I even left a beer I thought went bad in my conical fermenter in my garage for 2 months this summer. It didn't taste too bad, but the hops had really faded so I drank some of it and made vinegar with the rest. The point is that even at 100F in my garage the dreaded "off flavors" never materialized.
Generally speaking racking to secondary does nothing for the beer that leaving it in primary longer won't do. Gravity makes solids settle out, and it works in both primary and secondary. Plus every time you rack your beer to a new vessel, you expose it to oxygen(bad), and you increase the risk of infection. My normal routine now is 2-4 weeks in primary, depending on the beer, but always at least a week after it hits FG.
I do use a secondary for things like mead and sour ales that need to sit a year or longer, but otherwise it's a few weeks in primary and straight to keg.

[JayShaw91]

Agreeing completely with Corky once again this morning.

I let my beers sit in primary for 3-4 weeks. I don't go any longer than that because, well, it's time to bottle and drink it :) Then again, I haven't made any high gravity beers and only done one dark beer, both of which I've read do benefit from some extended aging.

For high gravity beers, or any brew that requires extended aging, I'd say to follow Corky's advice and rack that to a secondary container to let it sit. For any dark beer, IMO, 3-4 weeks in primary and then to the bottle works, unless your preference is let the beer age for a while. There is no use, in my mind, to tie up your bottles for a beer you won't be drinking any time soon.

The point of extended aging, beyond letting particulates settle out, is to let flavors mellow and blend. Yes, bottle aging will get that for you, but racking to secondary (I believe) lessens oxygen exposure compared to bottling if you are careful when racking to seondary. This may be in my head, but my reasoning is the length of time that the beer is out of the fermenter when bottling is long than just racking to secondary. Others may differ on that!

[hooky]

I'm in corky's no secondary camp also. I'll leave it on the yeast for a week or so after it's done, then cold crash it and rack to keg.

[corkybstewart]

The point of extended aging, beyond letting particulates settle out, is to let flavors mellow and blend. Yes, bottle aging will get that for you, but racking to secondary (I believe) lessens oxygen exposure compared to bottling if you are careful when racking to secondary. This may be in my head, but my reasoning is the length of time that the beer is out of the fermenter when bottling is long than just racking to secondary. Others may differ on that!
But if you still have to bottle it eventually you're exposing it to oxygen when you rack to secondary, and again in the bottling bucket. If you could bottle directly from secondary by using a keg for secondary you could eliminate one step. Nowadays if I have something other than a sour that I need to bottle-say a beer for a friend-I'll rack from primary to a keg with priming sugar already in it and bottle using my Beergun(you could also use a regular bottling wand but you don't get to purge the bottle with CO2 first).. This really minimizes oxidation, but does require a kegging setup at least.

[markaberrant]

Yeah, screw secondaries. Although at the moment I've got a flanders red, a mead (that will be served still), and an under-attenuated imperial stout that is waiting for my package from B3 to arrive so that it can be dosed with Brett C. My "rules" for secondarying are:

1. anything that will be served still. I like to use secondary to drop all of the crap out them so that the bottles will be sediment free.
2. sour/wild/brett beers.
3. anything to be dryhopped. I was dryhopping in the primary, but I have to do a fair bit of carboy rocking to get all of the leaf hops wet, which invariably knocks some of the fermentation gunk that is stuck to the neck of the carboy back into solution. Much easier to add the dry hops to a clean carboy, and then rack the beer on top.

I made several beers this year in the 9-10% range, and not a single one went into secondary.