Is secondary fermentation just a waste of time?

[Asahikun]

...with all-extract brewing that is? I'm seriously starting to wonder.
One major caveat to start my reasoning - all other things are not equal.
I brewed 13 all-extract batches while I lived in Japan. Two were mediocre because I added sugar. The rest were 100% malt extract and were all bottled after 10-14 days in primary. I loved all of them.

I've just started drinking my 3rd batch here in England. All have spent 5-7 days in primary and 10-14 days in secondary. Batch 2 was in fact a replica of one I brewed several times in Japan. The major difference is a big one though - the water. There I used Japanese water and here English (surprise, surprise). There I brewed 18 litres, here 23 (which the tin actually said to use). There 100% of the water went through a filter, here 50% of it did. Everything else was the same. There the result was great, here it is mediocre. Batch 1 just tasted a bit odd and batch 3, Munton's Gold IPA, just tastes of apple juice. Argh, what's going on?

I know that pretty much everyone here advocates using a secondary fermentation stage, and that scientific explanations can be found to back up its use. I can't help but wonder though, whether this is really only worthwhile for all-grain/partial mash brewing and is, as I said up top, a waste of time for all-extract ales.

Any thoughts?

[toneyc]

I would think the extra 5 litres of water would have a significant effect, more significant than if you used a secondary or not. I mean, that's like 28% more water!

:D
Toney.

[Otis_The_Drunk]

I used to live in Los Angeles and the water quality there was a big concern..

What I used to do was use RO (Reverse Osmosis) water and add my own minerals to the mix....

I would think that with an IPA (to be true to style) you need to use Burton salts usually about 1 table spoon per 5 gallons.
Bass Ale uses water from Burton on the Trent.

If at all possible could you get a report on your water, I'm sure that even in England there should be a ministry (or something) that deals with water quality.

If you can get some kind of mineral fact sheet, I'll see what I can recommend to make adjustments to your water. that way we can get you on your way to making great beer again.

[Asahikun]

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, I figured the water was a big part of the equation. Maybe I was expecting too much of a change from using a secondary fermenter.

With the batch I'm brewing now I used 100% store-bought spring water and the kit called for a 20-litre batch so I'll see how this one turns out. I'm also going to use my secondary fermenter as a bottling bucket and prime with spray-dried amber malt extract so I should get a damn good Christmas beer.

What is kind of surprising is that the kits I used in Japan only required using 1 tin+sugar for a 23-litre batch. I used 2 tins for an 18-litre batch and loved the results. Maybe I like really strong tasting beer or perhaps I should give up smoking!

[fretlessman71]

There is no question in my mind that if you give up smoking, ALL beer - not just YOUR beer - will taste better. So will all food, and even fresh air, for that matter! :)

[Bruno_78]

If secondary conditioning is benificial to all grain brewing, then it would be benificial to extract brewing as well. You still have your break material, as well as hop crap that's going into the fermenter. And likewise you still have the yeast that is under the beer, and you want to get the beer off of that before too long. I've not been able to find a reason NOT to do a secondary.

Except, that is, for time, I'm always running out of homebrew!

[wortchillergoal]

Racking from the primary fermenter to the second will give you something to do instead of smoking.

[Yodar]

My brief experience convinces me if i depart from extracts by adding grains, or doing an AG , I will have a lotta dead unfermentable "dreck" in my tru that I dont want, so I better secondary it out.

As soon as I started partial mashing with grain, I started seeing a lot of precipitated cellular material in my worts. Thinking I needed some VISIBLE yeast in my fermented beers to bottle with I hadnt done a real secondary till I did my first AG

My first ag\\AG, called derisively "Burnt-Elbow Ale", by the end of a looooong boil was so full of protein precipitate it looked like metalflake auto paint.

Put an ounce of cascade in the seconday and gave it a week.

The recipe's creator said 1 week in plastic, 1 week in carboy and bottle it for 2 weeks

Time passes and I bottle what appeared to be a fairly clear beer from the secondary, just a slight haze. one bottle reserved was a Corona so I could watch.

Ten days later I looked at the Corona bottle..Where did all that yeast come from? Chilled it and sampled it, pleased to see carbonation, a nice white head, and a beer so golden and transparent I thot I had MHL !

It doesnt taste like MHL, tho ! I am going to do some more hopping in the secondary!

I'm sure if I leave the bottles for a while I'll have a nice cake of yeast in the bottom of every bottle of light gold beer.

Yodar

[evilredlight]

So asahikun
Have you just recently returned to the board Or have i just missed all your other posts.
welcome back anyway!

i had a problem making some of the recipies I found on this board because of the different batch size
It was actually a lwhile before I realized that my five gallons was 23 litres, and when most people on this board talk about 5 gallons they mean about 18 litres.
I bet you are not working with Kilogrammes though.
Well I have my rule of thumb that 1Kg of sugar raises a 23L batch by 2% alcohol.
I don't know if this is the reason you are having problems.
I thought water didn't matter so much in a extract beer since the chemistry of mashing and converting suger from grain is already achieved.
Another suggestion would be to makesure that the extracts are hopped, I remember you were using hopped extracts in Japan (primary I know, but I i am just thinking it could slip by)

i don't think secondary is very important, but apparently keeping the beer off the trub is essencial to minimising off tastes
Anyway goodluck with your next beer
I have recently returned to brewing (I took the summer off since i don't have a fridge to keep the fermentor cool)
I have a wheat beer and a belgian beer in primary right now!

[Asahikun]

Thanks for the welcome evilredlight. I've been brewing and occasionaly posting again for about 2 months. Welcome back to brewing yourself.

Yeah, I've been having a pretty disappointing time since getting back into brewing. The kits I used in Japan were actually designed for 23l but I brewed them with 18 and loved the results. I doubled up on tins, which meant I was getting double the hops. Here, the kits are designed to be all-malt so should be right for 23litres.

I think that water may well be less important with extract brews but is still a major part. It has to be, doesn't it? Considering how much of the final product is actually water, it must affect the flavour to some extent.

It's kind of weird that I was looking forward to brewing in England believing that my beer would be even better and brewing would be easier (because of availability of supplies). After getting to know more about it while I was brewing there, I felt like I was doing many things wrong but still producing beer I really liked; using 2 tins of hopped extract for 18l batches when one tin was desinged for 23l, not using a secondary fermenter, priming with the cheapest white sugar because it was sold in really handy 5g sachets, disinfecting with kitchen bleach, not bothering to use a hydrometer (I bottled when the my instinct told me the beer was ready) etc. Since getting here I have been brewing the amount stated on the kits, have been using a secondary and hydrometer and have stopped using a blow-off. Now my beer is mediocre! Argh!

I'm going to move back to some parts of my old method and see if things improve. For my Christmas beer, which I bottled this evening, I have skipped the secondary, I have brewed only 20l (which the kit actually said), I have used store-bought mineral water and have primed with DME. Fingers crossed!

Sorry about the rather long ramble. It's been a long day.

[BrewDog]

Asahikun-

Apple Juice tasting beer- Might be poorly aerated before pitching yeast, or fermented too hot, or both.

Now, exactly how big was 1 tin of hopped LME when you were in Japan? 1.5 Kg each? When you were brewing in Japan with these hopped kits, how long did you boil the wort?

Here's what I'm getting at:
If you are already boiling for a whole hour, you can skip the hopped LME altogether. Buy unhopped LME and/or DME and hop it yourself. It's a LOT cheaper, and through a bit of experimentation, you can make the beer as hoppy as you like.
Even if you aren't boiling for the whole hour, adding half an hour should be considered to save the money and allow you freedom to make the beer you REALLY want.

One good way to figure out how much and what kind of hops you need is to look at a recipe book like "Clone Brews". Find a commercial beer that you like and are familiar with and look at what kind, how much, and when the hops are added. Use this as a starting point and adjust it from there.

One other thing, bottled mineral water sounds good, but it might not necessarily be the best thing to brew with. It might be better to go with regular old bottled drinking water, and add Burton Salts as Otis suggests. Sulfates really bring out crisp hop flavors. I left out the gypsum (calcium sulfate) - one component in Burton Salts - from a batch and really noticed the difference. It is possible that the mineral water you are using is high in other minerals but low in sulfates. That could be partly causing some of the mediocre flavor you are experiencing.

[Asahikun]

Thanks for the suggestions Brewdog.
In answer to your questions:

The beer that has an appley taste did get a little hot - off the scale in fact, but only for about 8-10 hours. Would that be long enough to cause it?

The size of tins in Japan was the same as here; depending on the beer, some were 1.5 and some were 1.8kg.

I didn't and still don't boil my wort. I am still taking the really lazy approach - just tinned LME and nothing else. In this case, I believe that boiling the wort destroys any hop aroma in the LME. Many kits specifically say not to boil for this reason.

When I left Japan, I felt that my brewing was at a point where I was ready to start experimenting and I tried dry-hopping, using honey etc. That was because I was making decent beer using the simplest possible procedure. Here, it's like I have gone backwards - I am even managing to screw up simple all-extract no-tweaks brewing. I feel I need to find out what I am doing wrong before I start tweaking too much.

It's only the batch that I bottled last night where I used store-bought water. The 3 batches that didn't taste great used (1) all-tap, (2) half-tap/half-filtered and (3) entirely filtered. (Filtered=through a Brita type device).
I've got the bottle of mineral water next to me and it breaks down like this:

Calcium 10mg/litre
Chloride 15mg/litre
Magnesium 2.2mg/l
Sulphate 11mg/l
Sodium 10mg/l
Nitrate 20mg/l
Potassium 2.3mg/l
Flouride less than 0.1mg/l
Bicarbonate 13mg/l
Iron less than 0.01

pH 6.5

Does this sound any good for brewing?

[Otis_The_Drunk]

From what you show as to what is in your water, the water looks fine.

Sulfate may be a little high, but not to the extent that it would effect your beer. If anything it would make the fermentation smell a little sulfer like, but it shouldn't effect the flavor.

if in doubt I would do a brewdog says.....

[Asahikun]

Thanks for the reply. I didn't notice any sulfur smell while it was fermenting. Hopefully this will turn out to be a good beer then.

[GettinSquare]

If the water tasted bad or reacts badly with your system when you drink it, then should you use it as the largest component of your brew???

I was in London 18 months ago and the water tasted like recycled grey water and sewerage and gave me the shits (literaly) - and the reason is - it is recycled sewerage, grey water and storm water runoff.

I'm in the position where I can use pure rain water from my roof that I then put through a 0.5 micron filter before using in my brew. It is impossible to describe the difference in quality between that rain water and the local tap water which is of very good quality.

Its all in the water!

[BrewDog]

Here is a link to a table of Water Mineral Content (http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-2.html) based on city. I think the sulfate levels could be adjusted upwards based on the numbers you gave and the table.

[P-Train]

Why not use gallon drinking water from the grocery store?

I realize tap can be pretty bad how 'good' can water be that's practical to get?