When to go to secondary?

[skibikejunkie]

Brewed a batch of my IPA recipe a week ago Friday. I usually let it sit for 10-14 days in the primary then rack to secondary to dry hop. In past batches, the yeast have flocked and settled within 7-10 days, but this time around I've still got quite a bit of cloudiness from the yeast (Wyeast 1056) in the bottom half of the carboy. This is a pretty big beer (1.070 OG), so I want to give the yeast time to clean up from the fermentation, even though there's been no activity in the airlock for almost a week (I pitched two smack packs, and this batch was blowing krausen up into the airlock within a few hours). I haven't checked gravity, just because I try to avoid doing so, as I don't like to risk infection.

On the one hand, I want to make sure the yeast have time to do their work and want to move as little yeast as possible into the secondary. On the other hand, my other kegs are running low, so I am anxious to get this beer done and packaged.

Given that I will probably fine this beer with gelatin anyway, am I OK to go ahead and rack to secondary, or should I give it a few more days in the primary?

[snowcapt]

Just go from primary to keg.
Skip the secondary, altogether, I say.
Just another critical control point that risks infection.
Go HACCP!

[siwelwerd]

If you don't need to reuse the yeast, just dry hop in the primary. This will help speed things along--the 5 days of dry hopping is 5 days the yeast can be cleaning up anything. If you're worried, the answer is to pull a sample and taste it--that will tell you if the yeast need more time or not.

[brewinhard]

+1 to both posts! Both great bits of advice and ones that I ALWAYS follow with my beers. I would at least let the beer sit a total of 12-14 days in primary though (including 5-7 days of dry hopping in the primary). So dry hop that bitch and keg it 5 days or so later!

[Duzdisluk Infektid]

This was a point of confusion for me as a new brewer too. There are a lot of old school homebrewers, homebrew supply shops, and books that are going to tell the new homebrewer that secondary fermentation is a part of the program, and the truth is, that was once widely practiced, but no longer.
I'm not sure when the shift began (it seems farly recent) but if you frequent the forums, you'll see that the people that still believe in the merits of secondary racking are in the minority now. As the previous posters stated, it doesn't benefit most beers to do this and it risks infection and oxidation.

Having said that, there are some exceptions: High gravity beers like barleywines that will be aged for extended periods of time, or beers brewed with a lot of extra vegetal matter like fruit puree will benefit from being removed from the trub after a few weeks, but only once ferementation has ended as evident by staggered gravity measurements.
You can reduce trub that makes it to the fermenter by using a hop sock, and being careful to leave as much trub behind as popssible when you transfer from your kettle.

[mtyquinn]

+1 just dry in in primary. and move on.

[skibikejunkie]

+1 just dry in in primary. and move on.

I've heard it suggested several times to dry hop in the primary, but I also heard Tasty mention on an episode of CYBI that if you dry hop in the primary, you may as well throw your hops away, as the yeast will absorb all the hop flavor. I also know from touring commercial breweries that they cellar the yeast out of the conical before dry hopping, but this may have as much to do with reusing the yeast as anything else.

Obviously losing "all the hop flavor" is an exaggeration, but I suspect there would be some loss. Has anyone tried moving part of a batch to secondary and dry hopping there while leaving the rest in the primary? Just wondering how much flavor the yeast would actually absorb and seems as if this is the best way to find out. If nobody has tried that experiment, maybe I will in a future batch and make it the topic of another post.

For the record, I ended up moving to secondary after 12 days in primary with some yeast still in suspension. I hadn't quite hit my target terminal gravity, but the airlock has been bubbling in the secondary since the move. So maybe the move was a good thing if nothing else to get the suspended yeast active enough to finish off the fermentation.

[Duzdisluk Infektid]

+1 just dry in in primary. and move on.

For the record, I ended up moving to secondary after 12 days in primary with some yeast still in suspension. I hadn't quite hit my target terminal gravity, but the airlock has been bubbling in the secondary since the move. So maybe the move was a good thing if nothing else to get the suspended yeast active enough to finish off the fermentation.

I tried that once and ended up with a stuck ferment at 1.030. Doesn't always work out. Just sayin.