So I'd like to get Chaos' take on this. I've tasted many of your beers & have to say a majority of them are impressive.
My question is this: Do most / some of you rack to a secondary vessel during the fermentation process? Or do you just "let it ride" until fermentation is complete in the primary fermenter?
I have to be honest and say I've never racked to another vessel because of a couple reasons
1) Not sure it's worth the risk of possible contamination and/or oxidation
2) It's 45 minutes on the CTA to get to the brewhouse for me & I'd rather make the trip to either brew or keg instead of just "rack" (read: lazines)
Also, in your experience, are some yeasts more prone to give "off" flavors the longer the beer sits on the cake?
Any input about your results is greatly appreciated!
-brandon
You definitely want to let the fermentation 'finish', so, if you have the time, I would not do anything less than ten to 14 days. When I'm not in a hurry, I let it ride for three weeks, then transfer to secondary or bottle. Once you get past three weeks, off flavors will start to appear; usually reminiscent of canned tuna.
I don't think I've racked to secondary unless I needed to free up a carboy or add Brett. There's really no reason to at the homebrew level. Autolysis just isn't going to take place in a carboy or bucket of 5 gallons of beer in any sort of timescale we generally operate on, and so long as you are working with a healthy culture of yeast, they are not just going to simply start dying off.
Hell, I've had a beer at the brewhouse in my "primary" fermentor since November 7th. I'm actually going to keg it up today or tomorrow and I bet if I served it blind to anyone they wouldn't detect any issues that are generally related to autolysis.
Now every beer you give me to try is going to taste like autolysis death. Feel free to use that as a beer name.
Haha. Great name, Jeff!
Thanks for the input, guys. Much appreciated.
This is a great question and I think I have some good "true life" experiance on this.
I think a couple things are at factor for if "racking is right."
1. How long will the beer sit?
2. What yeast was used?
3. Where/how are you racking?
My Experiances:
1.) If I know the beer will sit more than a month; I always rack.
2.) I make a good bit of cider, and I've been of the "rack after 2 weeks" club for the first few years of brewing... but I started to realize I could leave a cider sit for 6 weeks and not have any issues. And cider has very little to hide off flavors. But: the cider yeasts I've used are usually very low "flocculating" (I don't think that's exactly right. Is there a name for really loose thick trub?) as in there is a very little trub and it settles to a dense pile. Wine yeasts like montrachet create a 1/8 inch thick trub and SO5 is also very low. If I made a cider where I had irish yeast, which seems to leave 8 inches of loose trub, that might be a huge factor I didn't deal with in cider.
3.) I have had more beer go bad from racking in 9 months at the club (3 sour barrells, 2 in one day. Turned out the "star san" was pretty much water... so forgive I'm a little uncertain about star san I didn't see made). So I only rack lagers at the club. They are going into a cold chamber anyway, so I don't really care. When I racked in my house, I never had an issue (2 barrels in 5 years gone sour, and one I knew was my fault). When I rack now, I use a co2 charger to blow off all the air and try and protect it.
Hope any of that helps.
TL;DR: Do you have to rack.... I'd say def. "no" if your beer isn't sitting for more than a month and it's not some super funky high flocculation yeast.
Hey Kris
Thanks for the reply. Noted on your suggestions & appreciated.
And I have to agree with you though on the hesitancy about the Star San bucket.... When I became a member here just a year and 1/2 ago even the "Brewers" that "signed me off" didn't even know how much Star San to put in the bucket. Quite ridiculous in my opinion.
I'm thankful that Jim V brought up the fact that people were making Star San incorrectly, and that a process has been brought into light.
I'd like to take this moment to remind those who "supervise" a brew to emphasize how to correctly make a batch of Star San using the 1 OZ marking on the mini beaker. And if it's a big brew day & you're making 10 gallons of Star San - measure out 10 gallons of water with the stick in a brew pot. Don't "guesstimate."
I sometimes do. But its not necessary with beers that are not aged or you want brilliantly clear.