First timer transitioning to secondary - question about SG

[u/Sea-Intention4193]

I got the 5lb kit from Brewer's Best for the American Amber and my OG was 1.051 6.5 days ago when I started. I just measured SG at 1.020 and transferred to the carboy via a siphon, taking care to not suck up any of the gunk at the bottom. Tasted a tiny bit at the bottom of the fermenter and it tasted like an uncarbonated amber ale so I feel like I'm on the right track.

The airlock stopped bubbling around 24 hours ago, and I still have ~.005 to go to reach a FG within the expected range. I'm assuming it will achieve that in the secondary over the next two weeks, but I just figured I'd reach out to those much smarter than I to determine if I'm on the right track.

I've also read about people using stuff to increase clarity before they bottle and I'm looking to get some opinions on it.

[u/attnSPAN]

Super easy, don’t transfer a secondary. Absolutely do not do that. It will only make this beer worse. Just wait longer in the primary, then transfer to a bottling bucket if you have one.

The only time when the secondary can benefit is in long-term aging of high ABV(10+%) beers where long-term exposure to high alcohol could stress the yeast.

If you were to transfer to secondary, that’s only done after you have hit projected FG. Why would you want to remove a fermenting beer from the yeast before it’s done? That doesn’t make any sense and is bad practice.

[u/Sea-Intention4193 → u/attnSPAN]

Too late for that unfortunately, I've already transferred it. I'm curious as to why the instructions would recommend a secondary if it's going to make it worse?

The instructions also mention in regards to transferring to the secondary, "When the fermentation slows (5-7 days), but BEFORE IT COMPLETES, simply transfer the beer into the carboy and allow fermentation to finish in the 'secondary'."

[u/barley_wine → u/Sea-Intention4193]

There was an old belief in homebrewing for years that transferring to secondary was beneficial (not to mention that commercial breweries did it)*. It'd get the beer off the yeast cake and allow the beer to further clear. But there's also the minor risk of an increased chance of infection by introducing an extra transfer into an extra vessel AND people started to realize that it can seriously oxidize your beer, especially with hoppy styles.

Homebrewers started to experiment without doing the secondary transfer and most found that it just produced better beer. You're already exposing the beer to oxygen when bottling (and at least then your yeast will scrub some oxygen while carbonating the bottles), why would you want to double that exposure?

Many recipe instructions still have the old method of doing the secondary, but with real world experience wise it just makes a worse product. Go to a local homebrew meeting if you can find one, find the people who made the best beer you had that night and ask them if they recommend you do a secondary, most if not all will tell you to skip it.

*Commercial breweries with their large volumes of liquids add a bunch of weight to the yeast cake which causes the yeast cells to die earlier, not something on the homebrew scale. Next commercial breweries all do closed oxygen free transfers, which is something that most homebrewers transferring to a secondary vessel don't have access to. It's not a true comparison.

[u/attnSPAN → u/barley_wine]

Great comment, the old secondary every beer instruction was from back when brewer’s yeast had about as much tolerance for alcohol as bread yeast, so it made sense to get off asap, but that was 40 years ago.

The brewing yeast industry has come a long way since then.

[u/NWSmallBatchBrewing → u/Sea-Intention4193]

attnSPAN is 100% correct. Secondary doesn't mean a secondary vessel either it means secondary fermentation which only happens if you add more fermentable to it for some reason. Beer takes time and yeast needs time to clean up ... it will reabsorb a lot of off flavors it creates during fermentation if you give it time. There is never a need to rack it until you ready to serve it or you are going to age it for a long period of time. I would let your beer at this point sit at room temp for 2-3 weeks and then serv/carbonate it.

[u/Seanbikes → u/NWSmallBatchBrewing]

No, secondary in this context does mean a second fermenter. It is outdated and should be ignored but for some reason they still include the step in kit instructions like it's still 1987.

[u/Sea-Intention4193 → u/NWSmallBatchBrewing]

That's what the instructions say at this point; let it sit for 2 weeks in the secondary then bottle it. We will see if the SG goes down any in that time, otherwise I'll have some 4% ambers lol.

[u/xnoom → u/Sea-Intention4193]

I'm curious as to why the instructions would recommend a secondary

See here for. more info.

[u/toolatealreadyfapped → u/Sea-Intention4193]

None of us understand why all these beginner kits still include instructions about the secondary, when it's been almost universally recognized as bad advice for over 20 years.

A lot of homebrew practices come from trying to emulate the pros. Large breweries transfer, for fear of off flavors from the dead yeast cake under the pressure of the beer on top. But that's because the huge industrial fermentor creates 15-20psi simply due to the tall column of beer. Your 5 gallons in a bucket will never create more than about 1 psi. But even those who ferment under pressure do not notice any off flavors.

But seriously. You gain nothing in the process, and you introduce oxygenation and potential infection. Skip it.

[u/MmmmmmmBier]

We used to transfer to secondary for two reasons; lack of temperature control and yeast quality.

Back in the day we were told to put our beer in a cool dark room for a week. The problem was we didn’t know how warm our beer got during fermentation. Warm = stress on the yeast. We would transfer off of the yeast cake because of the risk of yeast autolysis, where the yeast cells would rupture and cause off flavors.

We now know the importance of temperature control. If you can maintain the fermentation temperature range of the yeast you are using you don’t have to transfer to secondary. But everyone doesn’t have the ability of reliably controlling fermentation temperature. So if your beer is warmer than the yeast tolerance, I would consider transferring to secondary. But you will have to make that decision based on your experience.

[u/Sea-Intention4193 → u/MmmmmmmBier]

That is really good insight, thank you. I did tape the crystal thermometer to the side of the fermenting bucket and maintained ~64-72 degree range over the past 6 days so I guess I would have just been better leaving it on the yeast cake for another week, huh?

[u/MmmmmmmBier → u/Sea-Intention4193]

Yes.

[u/Guilty-Willow2848]

Secondary is old school, and for large breweries, at homebrew level, you will almost never experience autolysis ( i have brewed for 11 years now, and never used secondary, and also never had autolysis) If you age a beer in a cask, you also have yeast in it, but the beer stays on top for up to a year or more. So no need to risk an infection. Just keep brewing, relax and have a homebrew.

[u/attnSPAN → u/Guilty-Willow2848]

That’s interesting about the cask. When I was pro brewing, we always crashed out beers until they were bright and ready for packaging, then xfered them over to barrels for aging.

Did you mean casks for Cask Ale? Those we definitely tried to leave a little yeast in -so they’d cask condition/carbonate correctly.