I think dry hopping is another tactic that you should do in a secondary vessel. I wouldn’t dry hop during primary because of the reasons you mention in your comment.

cheers.

I appreciate the research into the subject. I think a secondary phase is needed when one is brewing at a large scale. For homebrewers where the batches are smaller, the secondary isn’t necessary for most beer types. Again, this stance is based on our experience with homebrewing batches of 5 or 10 gallons.

I love the simplicity of not doing a secondary, along with the idea of “less messing with reduces chance of oxidation, etc…” but I read this on Wikipedia – and it aroused my overly OCD to make things clean, pure and premium – what really caught my attention was the acetylaldehydes/hangover reference:

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewing#Secondary_fermentation):

“After initial or primary fermentation, the beer may be transferred into a second container, so that it is no longer exposed to the dead yeast and other debris (also known as “trub”) that have settled to the bottom of the primary fermenter. This prevents the formation of unwanted flavours and harmful compounds such as acetylaldehydes, which are commonly blamed for hangovers. During secondary fermentation, most of the remaining yeast will settle to the bottom of the second fermenter, yielding a less hazy product.”

What are your thoughts on this?

FYI – I am new to brewing, I am not kegging, but going to bottles…

Thanks!

Great discussion, just started a new fermentation on a dark stout with a predominance of hops, and dry hopped! Wish me luck!, anyways, with this discussion i wanted to give my input on this point.
Id say to chill and add clearing agent to the primary upon complete fermentation, still utilizing the secondary for an additional chill step and dropping out more sediment. Id also agree that the secondary really only benefits the impatient very much.

I’ve had an Ale in the fermenter for 3 weeks now (my first brew) OG 1.040. It has dropped to 1.019 and held there for the last 5 days now. The recipe says 1.019 and under is OK, but to achieve the ABV of 4.0 they specified it would finish at about 1.009.

My thoughts are that this didn’t ferment as much as it could, so either (1) yeast has died and adding sugar during bottling will just increase sweetness (yeuch) OR (2) yeast has gone dormant and will reactivate when transfered to a bottle — adding sugar will be too much in a bottle as it still has unconverted sugar left over from the wort.

My question is this. When I bottle do I need to add sugar.
I don’t mind if this English Bitter is low on the carbonation side as that’s typical for a pub draft in the UK.

Thanks–

If it is an ale, the bottles won’t carbonate if you put them in the fridge. Your plan to have them carb up at room temps for a couple of weeks and then move them to the fridge for an extended period of time would work well.