Secondary fermentation advice

[CliffEdge]

Hello, I am reactivating my interest in homebrew, and have a Wilko Hoppy Copper on. Reading through various hints I have brewed it to only 20 pints, with no added sugar, and put in an 11g sachet of Nottingham yeast, instead of the packet supplied.
It's going well.

I would be grateful for any tips on secondary fermentation. I have glass 500ml bottles and will get a capper.

Is it best to transfer to a secondary vessel before bottling?
If so do I add sugar solution to it, or dry sugar to the bottles?
Any kinds of sugar to recommend, or alternatives?
How much to use? I don't want too much fizz in the end product!
How much space to leave at the top of the bottles?

Thanks to anyone who can help.

Clive.

[Fil]

for a 40pint kit the priming charge can vary between 80-160g for ales and upto 200g for highly conditioned lagers intended for ice cold serving.

if priming the bottles individually its a boring repetitve task thats easily cocked up missing 1 and 2x in another bottle can happen..

mixing in the charge in a 2nd bucket off the sediment ensures an even distribution but can increase the risk of infection or oxidisation if stired to violently remember o2 is now not good for the brew..

fill up to the usual full bottle of beer level with an inch or so headroom over the liquid level in the bottleneck.

when racking off into a 2nd bucket, and into the botle the transfer will excite some co2 that is still in suspension in the beer out as foam, so be prepared for the beer to foam out the top of the bottle a bit when filling (do it over a deep tray ) foam is good it contains co2 and forms a barrier to the o2 in the air..

for a not too fizzy brew of 20 pints i think 2g per pint or 40, perhaps 45g of sugar should be fine for the batch. should let you pour a nice headless pint with enough life to lace the glass nicely

[Rhodesy]

Just to add, I would make sure that your brew has fully fermented before bottling. Typically this would be a gravity reading which does not change in a 3 day period. Obviously this can depend on the yeast, if you were already at target etc but generally speaking. The last thing you want is to bottle a batch which has not attenuated fully and results in gushers!

[CliffEdge]

Helpful advice from both...Thanks!

[Fil]

welcome to Jims btw..

[Fil]

welcome to Jims btw..

[CliffEdge]

[quote=Fil post_id=822601 time=1505310034 user_id=8767]
welcome to Jims btw..
[/quote]

Thanks. I actually was here a good few years ago, but couldn't remember my password, and the email I would use to get a reset is no longer in existence, so I had to reregister!!

[rootsbrew]

I would be grateful for any tips on secondary fermentation. I have glass 500ml bottles and will get a capper.

Is it best to transfer to a secondary vessel before bottling?
If so do I add sugar solution to it, or dry sugar to the bottles?
Any kinds of sugar to recommend, or alternatives?
How much to use? I don't want too much fizz in the end product!
How much space to leave at the top of the bottles?

Hoppy Copper was, in fact, my first (post student) brew. It was pretty good - enough to motivate me to keep brewing!

In answer to your questions, based on my experience...
• No, no need to transfer to another vessel for further settling, so long as fermentation has well and truly come to a halt and most of the yeast has fallen to the bottom of the fermenter, unless you can't bottle in the next month or so when it might be good to get the beer off the yeast by 'racking' to another vessel.
• Yes, do bulk prime - i.e. mix the priming fermentables with the beer in a big container, rather than to the bottles. It's more uniform and more tidy. If you don't have a 2nd vessel, use the biggest stockpot you can find and prime proportionately. Further, by transferring to a bottling bucket, you will remove quite a lot of the spent yeast from the beer, which means less sediment in your bottles and lower amounts of yeast bi-products.
• DME (dry malt extract a.k.a. spraymalt) is the thing to use - pale or medium are fine here, especially seeing as you've gone for an all malt brew.
• Priming: dissolve 10g DME / litre of beer in a pan, at a rate of 1g : 2ml water. Bring solution to the boil, then throw this hot syrup into a sanitised bin/bucket and shake a little to cool, then syphon beer on to this cooling syrup, stirring very gently (so as not to add oxygen but enough to mix). This should give you a homogeneous mixture. If done in the morning, the remaining yeast should have woken up in 8-12 hours, so good to bottle in the evening.
• The head-space is almost automatic. When bottling, use a syphon or bottling wand (like the little bottler) and put the tube right to the bottom of each bottle, then fill to the top with liquid. When you remove the syphon tube there will be the perfect amount of head-space.

It's funny (peculiar) - technically, secondary fermentation is the fermentation where additional fermentables are added to an already fermented beer and usually whose carbon dioxide is captured (to make the beer fizzy) but the word secondary is often used to refer to the second phase of primary fermentation - like "rack to a secondary", even though no new fermentables are added.

Good luck.

[orlando]

If you want a sparklingly clear beer you could also add some gelatine at the same time as the priming syrup.

[Jocky]

• DME (dry malt extract a.k.a. spraymalt) is the thing to use - pale or medium are fine here, especially seeing as you've gone for an all malt brew.
• Priming: dissolve 10g DME / litre of beer in a pan, at a rate of 1g : 2ml water. Bring solution to the boil, then throw this hot syrup into a sanitised bin/bucket and shake a little to cool, then syphon beer on to this cooling syrup, stirring very gently (so as not to add oxygen but enough to mix). This should give you a homogeneous mixture. If done in the morning, the remaining yeast should have woken up in 8-12 hours, so good to bottle in the evening.

A good guide from roots, but there's just a couple of things I disagree with here.

DME or plain old white sugar makes no difference for priming, save that you need more DME than you would sugar. 6.8g of sugar per litre of beer will give you the same level of carbonation as 10g per litre of DME. Any combination of beet/cane/granulated/caster sugar is fine.

If you follow roots' instructions above by putting the syrup into the bottling bucket and then siphoning your beer on top, you don't really need to leave it cool, it will do so near instantly. And the lot will be homogonised and ready to bottle as soon as you're done siphoning your beer into the bottling bucket. It doesn't need time to 'wake up' - it'll do that in the bottle.

The only other bit I'd add is when you're siphoning from your fermenter to the bottling bucket, don't push your siphon all the way to the bottom as you will pick up yeasty trub, which can cause your beer to gush from the bottles (it causes a rough layer at the bottom of the bottle that acts as nucleation sites for CO2). There's plenty enough yeast in clear beer to carbonate it in the bottle. Don't be greedy when getting to the bottom of the fermenter either - you will end up picking up a lot of yeast again.

[rootsbrew]

If you want a sparklingly clear beer you could also add some gelatine at the same time as the priming syrup.

Does this keep the bottle sediment more compact? Most beers settle out in about 3 weeks but the sediment is quite mobile.

A good guide from roots, but there's just a couple of things I disagree with here.

Thanks. Yeah, I'm sure many of my ways aren't necessary but I prefer to use only malt and try to bottle actively refermenting beer, but those are my particularities.

... don't push your siphon all the way to the bottom as you will pick up yeasty trub, which can cause your beer to gush from the bottles ... There's plenty enough yeast in clear beer to carbonate it in the bottle. Don't be greedy when getting to the bottom of the fermenter either - you will end up picking up a lot of yeast again.

@CliffEdge: This is quite important and the main reason many people rack to an intermediary vessel - it's really easy to mix a bit of trub into the beer, so if there's less trub, there's less mixing... then less crazy foaming when the bottle is opened. It takes a bit of practice but unknowingly dragging trub into the bottling bucket can, as Jocky mentions, be a route to bottle bombs or volcano bottles. When I find I've got a trubby batch, I chill the bottle as cold as possible (in the freezer with a timer-alarm) keeps the sediment in check and bubbles small enough to pour relatively clear and bright. If you're patient, allow to warm a bit before drinking.

[orlando]

If you want a sparklingly clear beer you could also add some gelatine at the same time as the priming syrup.

Does this keep the bottle sediment more compact? Most beers settle out in about 3 weeks but the sediment is quite mobile.

It can. The reason I'm equivocating is that it depends on how much trub and yeast have carried over into the bottle, the more there is the fluffier it seems to be. When I first started out I wanted to make beer that tasted and looked at least as good as commercially produced bottle conditioned beer. What I noticed was the difference in my early beers compared to the commercial stuff, they were getting a paint layer of yeast on the bottom of their bottles, whereas mine looked like someone had used a trowel. That was because I believed that if the beer was crystal clear going into the bottle there was no yeast. There are millions of yeast cells in "clear" beer. I'm not talking about the filtered rubbish on the supermarket shelf, I'm talking about "natural" beer. My technique is different now to when I was using plastic bucket type fermentors but essentially I would crash chill my fermented out beer until most of the yeast had flocculated out and was already clear. I would then syphon into a second, not "secondary", fermentor that contained my priming syrup AND the gelatine for fining. This bucket had a tap on it that I could fix a bottling wand to. This would be left for a minimum of 24 hours, sometimes longer as long as it was kept cool, usually back into the fridge that had just crash cooled the beer. If it's Summer and you can't keep it cool, fine first then gently introduce the syrup. I would then bottle the beer ensuring "clear" beer was going in but which had more than enough yeast cells in it to carbonate. Result: clear beer with a thin layer of compacted yeast. Jocky makes a salient point, don't be greedy, leave behind anything that is not already very clear. If it isn't then leave it a little longer. Spoiling 40 pints for the sake of one more makes no sense to me at all. All that happens is you hand over a cloudy beer to a friend who quietly thinks, "Oh yes, home brew ".

[CliffEdge]

Thanks Roots, Jocky and Orlando, more good advice gratefully received. I think you've all made good points to set me in the right direction. Must admit I'm going to try the 'all malt' approach, and NOT rush things. After all I've got to find something to do in my approaching retirement!

[IPA]

If you want bright beer,and who doesn't, this is the way. Ferment until the vigorous ferment abates. Transfer to a second vessel and leave until the gravity has remained constant for three days. Add finings, gelatine works well, and leave for a further three days. Transfer to a bottling bucket and add priming sugar. 2.5 grams a litre for English beer is plenty. Follow this advice and you will have virtually no sediment in the bottle. NB all transfers should be made via a tap and silicone hose that reaches the bottom of the recipient vessel. If bottling use a bottling stick.
One further piece of advice. Hydrometer is not pronounced AIRLOCK.

[Rhodesy]

If you want bright beer,and who doesn't, this is the way. Ferment until the vigorous ferment abates. Transfer to a second vessel and leave until the gravity has remained constant for three days. Add finings, gelatine works well, and leave for a further three days. Transfer to a bottling bucket and add priming sugar. 2.5 grams a litre for English beer is plenty. Follow this advice and you will have virtually no sediment in the bottle. NB all transfers should be made via a tap and silicone hose that reaches the bottom of the recipient vessel. If bottling use a bottling stick.
One further piece of advice. Hydrometer is not pronounced AIRLOCK.

This could be achieved by just using the primary vessel if the tap for example is placed at an appropriate level above the yeast and trub. Most of the advise these days is to avoid a secondary providing you don't plan to sit the beer on the yeast cake for an extended period of time as this helps reduce the risk of oxygenation. I do appreciate that sometimes a secondary may be appropriate depending on circumstances however for a standard pale etc then is there really any need?