Can i go straight from fermenter to corni, and leave it for 8 weeks at a low temp then start drinking from the same corni? Or would i be better racking into a specified 2ndary fermenter?rack between 1.010 and 1.015 or within a few points of the brew completely finishing fermentation and I've read that the ideal lagering temperature is quite heigh for this yeast @ ~4-6oc.
Don't rack mid-fermentation. You will lose activity and character in the beer if you do rack whilst a healthy fermentation has built up. The use of a secondary is hotly debated particularly on the US forums where they seem to love their 2ndary fermenter. If you consider real ale as a prime examle of how to brew and condition beer, the ale is fermented out to within a few degrees of it's final gravity in 3-4days, kegged with finings and shipped off to the ale houses. At the pub the keg is stored in the cellar for a period of weeks whilst it matures & conditions. In this way the keg is both a secondary fermenter (better describes as conditioning) and dispense vessel. Leaving the yeast in is essential to the conditioning of the beer as it recoups many of the compounds it expelled into the brew whilst it was rapidly fighting with itself metabolising all of the sugar it could get hold of.
My spin on this with corny kegs is to leave the ale in the primary to ferment dry and fall clear, this takes 5-10 days. Then rack to a corny and allow the beer to condition for a few weeks pressurized at no more than 15psi (at higher pressures the yeast becomes inhibited.) Since using a high flocculation yeast Safale S-04 I've had no sediment problems in the keg or had to use finings at all but if you do get sediment in there it just comes out with the first 1/2pint of beer.)
Essentially it is essential to condition/ mature your beer but the dedicated 2ndary fermenter (instead of using a keg) is only a benefit if it helps prevent you from drinking the beer early Smile or if you have a particularly cloudy and irksome yeast. You don't need to syphon across any yeast, there will be plenty of cells and enzymes in the beer that you can't necessarily see.
phew.... sorry one of my pet subjects.
Frothy
