Racking from primary to secondary?

[peebee]

… I presume that your conical fermenter ...

That's the crux of it! You can do things very differently with conical fermenters. And you certainly don't need CO2 cylinders with it (they purge themselves).

 

[Keruso]

cheers. Out of interest what sort of primary fermenter do you use?

Hi I just purchased two of the relatively cheap purpose made plastic fermentation bins from my local home brew store. They have a plastic tap attached and a hole in the top with a rubber washer that the airlock pushes into. They are airtight and seem fine. I use the second one as the bottling bucket.

 

[Hoppyland]

That's the crux of it! You can do things very differently with conical fermenters. And you certainly don't need CO2 cylinders with it (they purge themselves).

Sorry if I don't understand the ins and out conical fermenters - my only experience of them is in photographs!
I'd guess that the shape means that more of the trub/dead yeast is concentrated in a narrower but deeper layer at the bottom.
My inclination, though, would be to drop the beer into another vessel before bottling so that it could settle - I'd be inclined to do this anyway even if only to free the conical for another brew - and it is at this transfer from primary to secondary/conditioning/storage/lagering/whatever that I would thoroughly purge with CO2.
But...... there are a lot of different ways to brew damned good beer!

 

[Keruso]

So would i be right in thinking if i wanted to dry hop then I should be racking

I also don’t rack to secondary and I have dry hopped all my beers. My IPAs typically need two weeks before fermentation has finished, on day 10 I will lift the lid and add the dry hops and quickly shut again. Dry hopping for four days then it’s into the bottle via a bottling bucket which really just allows me to add priming sugar to the entire batch and leave the yeast cake behind.

 

[Dale Kirkwood]

That's the crux of it! You can do things very differently with conical fermenters. And you certainly don't need CO2 cylinders with it (they purge themselves).

Bit of ignorance here but what do you mean by purging themselves and why would I have needed the CO2 cylinders

Do you have a link for the video btw??

 

[Dale Kirkwood]

Sorry if I don't understand the ins and out conical fermenters - my only experience of them is in photographs!
I'd guess that the shape means that more of the trub/dead yeast is concentrated in a narrower but deeper layer at the bottom.
My inclination, though, would be to drop the beer into another vessel before bottling so that it could settle - I'd be inclined to do this anyway even if only to free the conical for another brew - and it is at this transfer from primary to secondary/conditioning/storage/lagering/whatever that I would thoroughly purge with CO2.
But...... there are a lot of different ways to brew damned good beer!

Yeah that was one of the reasons we went for it. That plus the jacket around it helping to control the temperature. Our plan is to ferment in the primary/conical and dry hop in it as well, however then transfer to a bottling bucket with a bit of extra filtration and then obviously bottle. You mentioned letting it settle before bottling - out of interest, with doing what I just described, how long would you leave it to settle?

I just replied to @peebee saying about the CO2 purge - I'm not sure what this is.

Thanks for the guidance - making a big difference

 

[peebee]

Bit of ignorance here but what do you mean by purging themselves and why would I have needed the CO2 cylinders …

Your conical fermenter can act as both primary and secondary fermenter. As the primary fermentation produced volumes of CO2, it purged any oxygen out of the fermenter, it was @Hoppyland who recommended a CO2 cylinder because he uses one to purge his fermentation bucket.

If worried about having the beer sitting on the trub at the bottom of the ferment for the entire period of the secondary fermentation it can be dropped out using the dump valve. A fermentation trap goes on the fermenter for the secondary period (if it wasn't already there for the primary, but I find primary fermentation produces way more gas than a fermentation lock can cope with).

Personally I no longer bother to drop the trub out of the fermenter; as @Hoppyland mentioned, the trub exposes a reduced surface area to the rest of the beer anyway due to the cone shape. Dropping the trub will introduce a tiny bit of oxygen as air replaces the space occupied by the trub, but I've always considered this insignificant, especially if compared to someone using a bucket removing the lid to peek inside.

… Do you have a link for the video btw??

Sorry I don't or remember what it was about. @Bigcol49 mentioned it in his deleted post - he might see this and repost the link?

 

[peebee]

... Our plan is to ferment in the primary/conical and dry hop in it as well, ...

Yeap, I dry hop in the conical fermenter too.

… however then transfer to a bottling bucket with a bit of extra filtration and then obviously bottle. ...

Why?

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi
I linked to the video as a guide - it's a different conical so possibly introducing confusion.

 

[private4587]

OK I am sorry if this has been explained before but please forgive my ignorance, I set away my Bishops Finger Clone on Sunday 28th using wyeast 1469 yeast starter. This morning its bubbling away, i normally leave it for two weeks and then transfer to bottling bucket and bottle or minikeg. But in two weeks time i will be away for two weeks holiday, so my question is should i transfer to secondary before i go or would it be OK to leave it in primary on top of yeast cake for the extra two weeks.

 

[peebee]

OK ...

This will get lost buried in a thread like this. Start a new thread so more people see it.

 

[Dale Kirkwood]

Your conical fermenter can act as both primary and secondary fermenter. As the primary fermentation produced volumes of CO2, it purged any oxygen out of the fermenter, it was @Hoppyland who recommended a CO2 cylinder because he uses one to purge his fermentation bucket.

If worried about having the beer sitting on the trub at the bottom of the ferment for the entire period of the secondary fermentation it can be dropped out using the dump valve. A fermentation trap goes on the fermenter for the secondary period (if it wasn't already there for the primary, but I find primary fermentation produces way more gas than a fermentation lock can cope with).

Personally I no longer bother to drop the trub out of the fermenter; as @Hoppyland mentioned, the trub exposes a reduced surface area to the rest of the beer anyway due to the cone shape. Dropping the trub will introduce a tiny bit of oxygen as air replaces the space occupied by the trub, but I've always considered this insignificant, especially if compared to someone using a bucket removing the lid to peek inside.


Sorry I don't or remember what it was about. @Bigcol49 mentioned it in his deleted post - he might see this and repost the link?

Great cheers

Regarding the fermentation trap I assume you mean an airlock or breather pipe?

I suppose when you used to dump the trub out after primary it was a case of slowly emptying before the wort comes out lol

 

[peebee]

Great cheers

Regarding the fermentation trap I assume you mean an airlock or breather pipe?

I suppose when you used to dump the trub out after primary it was a case of slowly emptying before the wort comes out lol

Where did I get "fermentation trap" from?aunsure.... Yes, I meant "airlock".

I actually have a BSP threaded "pneumatic silencer" to vent the gas which is fitted to a BSP threaded valve, which itself is fitted to a Y splitter. When primary is done I just close the valve forcing the gas out of the other arm of the Y, to which is fitted the airlock. Once you've invested in a conical you quickly establish all the labour saving tricks ("labour saving" = "plain lazy"). But I did once have to replace the "lazy" bits and fit a "blow off" tube (having yeast squeezing its way out of the silencer is a bit yucky).

And some yeasts try to seal up the dump valve. Makes for a messy "dump" session, especially if its been settling for several days. Another reason I stopped "dumping". Yet another reason was a "solid body" in the fermenter threatening to jam the dump valve open. It didn't, but...

 

[Hoppyland]

what do you mean by purging themselves and why would I have needed the CO2 cylinders

Well (and I hope this helps and doesn't serve to confuse! Easy for me to lose the plot the older I get......)
For me, any container that you use as a primary fermenter will be self-purging. By self-purging, I mean getting rid of air - especially oxygen. It doesn't matter how much dissolved oxygen you have when your initial fermentation starts. In fact, it's great to have loads, because that causes your yeast to multiply & really get going. You only want this briefly, though, because it's only in the absence of oxygen that yeast produces alcohol. In any primary FV you will have an initial aerobic phase whilst the yeast grows. It will then produce CO2 like hell. After this happens, air is definitely your enemy - introducing air risks oxygen spoilage of beer, also spoilage organisms getting in there.
So..... I transfer my beer twice before bottling/kegging. The first decantation, from a primary to a secondary FV (after, say, 5 days, when I might typically dry-hop) when the beer is still just and so fermenting now seems unnecessary according to orthodox wisdom. But, I still do it. Why? Well it has produced good results for me for the last 20+ years. So I continue....
Why I need CO2 cylinders is because of my method of transferring beer in bulk,especially when bottling. Even if I ditched the secondary FV, there is no way that I'd try to circumvent the bulk-storage maturation stage. My approach to beer is not brew-it-quick and drink-it-quick.
One of my very best recent brews has the following timeline:
Mashed 24th July
Pitched 25th July
Racked into Secondary FV 5th August and dry-hopped (longer than I'd planned - huge family problems!)
Racked into plastic carboy 13th August.
Into keg 23rd August
Last pint drunk about a week ago - to huge wailing and weeping, it was still so good!!

But, to answer your question, the critical thing for me is to get rid of air at each transfer, because I'm pretty well convinced that oxidation is one of the major causes of poor homebrew. I use a siphon for each transfer, so I start the siphon off with almost zero height between the higher & lower vessel, and tip the lower vessel so that I'm siphoning into the max depth of liquid. When I'm confident that splashing won't occur then I lower the receiving vessel & let it fill. The last stage is that I introduce CO2 from my (home welding-sized) bottle such that any air in the headspace of my transfer vessel is, more or less, replaced by pure CO2. For me, "purging" means replacing one thing, that you don't want, with another thing, that you do want. In the case of my beer, it means purging air (well, the oxygen bit) with CO2

it was @Hoppyland who recommended a CO2 cylinder because he uses one to purge his fermentation bucket.

Slight correction here. Nope, I never purge my fermentation bucket, or at least the primary one. When I rack off/drop into secondary then it is my normal practice. For maturing in bulk before packaging, then I always purge very thoroughly
.

 

[Dale Kirkwood]

Where did I get "fermentation trap" from?aunsure.... Yes, I meant "airlock".

I actually have a BSP threaded "pneumatic silencer" to vent the gas which is fitted to a BSP threaded valve, which itself is fitted to a Y splitter. When primary is done I just close the valve forcing the gas out of the other arm of the Y, to which is fitted the airlock. Once you've invested in a conical you quickly establish all the labour saving tricks ("labour saving" = "plain lazy"). But I did once have to replace the "lazy" bits and fit a "blow off" tube (having yeast squeezing its way out of the silencer is a bit yucky).

And some yeasts try to seal up the dump valve. Makes for a messy "dump" session, especially if its been settling for several days. Another reason I stopped "dumping". Yet another reason was a "solid body" in the fermenter threatening to jam the dump valve open. It didn't, but...

I know what you mean by the yeast squeezing, I have the same issue with my basic 1 gallon set up.

BTW you asked in one of the previous posts why I would transfer to the bottling bucket - it was so that the hops from dry hopping could be filtered out and not enter the bottles. I assume with your conical fermenter you have a tap but then have to tilt slightly to get the wort out from below the tap?

Out of interest, when bottling do you use tablets into the bottle or mix the priming sugar with the whole solution?

 

[Dale Kirkwood]

Well (and I hope this helps and doesn't serve to confuse! Easy for me to lose the plot the older I get......)
For me, any container that you use as a primary fermenter will be self-purging. By self-purging, I mean getting rid of air - especially oxygen. It doesn't matter how much dissolved oxygen you have when your initial fermentation starts. In fact, it's great to have loads, because that causes your yeast to multiply & really get going. You only want this briefly, though, because it's only in the absence of oxygen that yeast produces alcohol. In any primary FV you will have an initial aerobic phase whilst the yeast grows. It will then produce CO2 like hell. After this happens, air is definitely your enemy - introducing air risks oxygen spoilage of beer, also spoilage organisms getting in there.
So..... I transfer my beer twice before bottling/kegging. The first decantation, from a primary to a secondary FV (after, say, 5 days, when I might typically dry-hop) when the beer is still just and so fermenting now seems unnecessary according to orthodox wisdom. But, I still do it. Why? Well it has produced good results for me for the last 20+ years. So I continue....
Why I need CO2 cylinders is because of my method of transferring beer in bulk,especially when bottling. Even if I ditched the secondary FV, there is no way that I'd try to circumvent the bulk-storage maturation stage. My approach to beer is not brew-it-quick and drink-it-quick.
One of my very best recent brews has the following timeline:
Mashed 24th July
Pitched 25th July
Racked into Secondary FV 5th August and dry-hopped (longer than I'd planned - huge family problems!)
Racked into plastic carboy 13th August.
Into keg 23rd August
Last pint drunk about a week ago - to huge wailing and weeping, it was still so good!!

But, to answer your question, the critical thing for me is to get rid of air at each transfer, because I'm pretty well convinced that oxidation is one of the major causes of poor homebrew. I use a siphon for each transfer, so I start the siphon off with almost zero height between the higher & lower vessel, and tip the lower vessel so that I'm siphoning into the max depth of liquid. When I'm confident that splashing won't occur then I lower the receiving vessel & let it fill. The last stage is that I introduce CO2 from my (home welding-sized) bottle such that any air in the headspace of my transfer vessel is, more or less, replaced by pure CO2. For me, "purging" means replacing one thing, that you don't want, with another thing, that you do want. In the case of my beer, it means purging air (well, the oxygen bit) with CO2


Slight correction here. Nope, I never purge my fermentation bucket, or at least the primary one. When I rack off/drop into secondary then it is my normal practice. For maturing in bulk before packaging, then I always purge very thoroughly
.

Great @Hoppyland that makes a lot of sense now

Actually thanks to you both (@peebee) - your answers here are giving me a good picture. We are brewing this weekend into the conical so will be able to put it into practice soon.

The recipe calls for 19C for 60hrs main fermentation, then maturing at 14C for 5 days then 28 days at 20C (which we will do in the bottle). My plan is to obviously do the primary in the conical but also do the first maturation stage of 5 days at 14C in the conical as well. As there is a huge amount of dry hopping we'll transfer out to a bottling bucket with some form of sieve/filtration to keep the hops away from the bottles, while trying to not let it splash (what have you done at this stage @peebee?)

Dale

 

[peebee]

… while trying to not let it splash (what have you done at this stage @peebee?)

Damn, I've been rumbled! I haven't bottled a batch of beer for eons, I only keg/cask.

… I assume with your conical fermenter you have a tap but then have to tilt slightly to get the wort out from below the tap?

That would be hazardous! My conical is a bit big (70L) so tilting it is out. I do though, perhaps equally hazardously, lean in and scoop out the clear (ish) beer below the tap and it goes into a couple of PET bottles. So I do bottle from the conical … well a bit.


I do not have a problem with dry hops because they go into mesh baskets and don't float loose in the beer. The fermenter's racking arm has a small pump attached to allow me to fill kegs 'cos they are taller than bottles, above the racking arm, and a 70L fermenter obviously isn't lifted off the floor! If you ever get tempted to have a pump on the racking arm, make sure the transfer pipe has a check valve or if the pump stops every thing it's pumped will syphon back into the fermenter, and that churns it up a bit! (I figured that from experience, not "risk assessment" unfortunately).