Is Secondary Fermentation Necessary for Homebrewing?

I get asked this question a lot and the answer is yes and no. Yeah, I know, that isn't really a good answer, but allow me to explain.

If you are doing any kind of standard ale like an IPA, Pale ale, Wheat, Stout, Porter, pretty much any kind of ale recipe, then you don't have to do a secondary fermentation. Just let the beer sit for 2-3 weeks for all the yeast to flocculate out and then bottle or keg your beer as normal.

However, if you are adding anything to your beer after it's done fermenting, that's when I suggest to do a secondary fermentation. Adding things to beer . . . what's that? If you are adding vanilla beans, fruit, dry hopping, coffee or anything else, then absolutely, do a secondary fermentation. Why not add to primary fermentation? Well, during primary fermentation there is so much activity going on that a lot of the flavors and aromas that you want to extract from the addition of other ingredients will more than likely get blown out during primary fermentation, which means you won't have as much flavor in your finished beer. This is the only time I do a secondary fermentation.

Lagers and Big beers (a.k.a. High gravity beers) need secondary fermentation. Lagers do because you need to rack out of the primary and into the secondary in order to actually "lager" your beer at 34 degrees for a month or so. With big beers, it's necessary to rack off of the yeast and let them sit to mature a little longer and finish up their secondary fermentation, and because primary fermentation may last up to one month with big beers. I've racked big beers from secondary to a tertiary (third racking) for a few months. Then I'll add new yeast and bottle.

So if a recipe calls for racking to secondary, ask yourself if you're adding anything more to that beer, and if you aren't then I wouldn't recommend racking. By not racking again you eliminate possible oxidation and contamination to your beer. Just have some patience, leave it sit another week in the primary and then rack off. All will be fine.

How to Clean a 5 Gallon Corny Keg

Here's the latest video on how easy it is to clean either a purchased, used corny keg, or a corny keg that was used for homebrewing. Corny kegs can be purchased at Ben's Homebrew at awesome prices!

Fermtech Wine Thief

The Fermtech Wine Thief is a must-have piece of equipment for both homebrewing and wine making. Why? The simple ease and design allows the user to extract samples from both beer and wine in a breeze. One of the greatest reasons to get a wine thief is especially if you're using carboys for fermenters. The thief makes it so easy to just pull a sample out. Simply insert it through the top of the neck and allow it to fill, pull it out and put the sample into a test jar and take a reading. I don't recommend taking readings inside of the wine thief because you can't spin the hydrometer to get the bubbles off of it, which can sometimes lead to an off reading; and another thing is that the bottom of the thief will drip a little, too. So it's much easier to pull the sample and put it into a test jar, let the foam settle down and take a hydrometer reading.

That's really all there is to the Fermtech Wine Thief, in a nutshell. They are simple and easy to use and work great. One other word of caution is to not use extremely hot water on them while cleaning because it can lead to stress cracks in the plastic. Otherwise, I suggest everyone have one of these in their arsenal of homebrewing and wine making.

Fermentis T-58 - Review

Fermentis pretty much says that T-58 yeast is "estery with somewhat peppery and spicy flavor". And that does sum it up nicely, but it's not the entire truth. I've used fermentis T-58 yeast plenty of times and the biggest thing that I have found is that it definitely has a peppery flavor to it. It's not in-your-face peppery, but it's discernible enough to know that it exists. As for the esters . . . .I've never tasted any kind of esters using this product but that doesn't mean they aren't there.

So, what else about Fermentis' T-58? What can this T-58 be used for in brewing? Well, I'd say one of the best styles for T-58 would be a witbier. The pepper flavor really pairs well with the coriander and orange peel. I threw some ingredients together one time and decided to try this yeast out. I took a keg of it on vacation and my twin brother told me it tasted just like Blue Moon. I don't remember what I put in the recipe but I do know I used some older hops and some older malt that I just wanted to use up. But it did surprisingly taste very good. So I'd say that T-58 could pair well with any kind of wheat beer. You could possibly substitute T-58 for a Belgian yeast if you wanted to but it would all depend on the kind of Belgian you are making. I'd say you could potentially use it for a saison recipe too. And as for temperature range, I would keep it on the warmer side and go anywhere between 70-75 degrees for the best flavor.

The one thing that I absolutely hate about Fermentis' T-58 is its flocculation properties. Quite simply stated: it sucks! T-58 does not have medium flocculation like how Fermentis' claims on their website. It has poor, very poor flocculation properties. After primary fermentation this stuff will just hang around in your beer for weeks if you don't do something about it. The best way is to add some gelatin or some K.C. Super Kleer finings or to cold crash those bad boys out of your beer.

Other than that I think that Fermentis T-58 is a good yeast to use depending on the style of beer you wish to drink. Here's a simple recipe for a witbier using the yeast. Give it a shot, I think you'll like this stuff. And let me know how the beer turns out if you make the recipe! Cheers!

Witbier (Perfect for Summer!) *Note: This is a 2.5 gallon boil volume.

3.30 lb LME Wheat Bavarian (Briess) (4.0 SRM) Extract 43.42 %
3.30 lb LME Wheat Bavarian (Briess) [Boil for 15 min] Extract 43.42 %
0.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 6.58 %
0.50 lb Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) Grain 6.58 %
1.00 oz Cascade [6.30 %] (60 min) Hops 12.7 IBU
0.50 oz Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
1.00 oz Coriander Seed (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs SafBrew Specialty Ale (DCL Yeast #T-58) Yeast-Ale

A.L.C.Y. Brew Session - Imperial Tripel Partigyle

Well, our fourth brew session took place for Ales and Lagers Carbonated with Yeast (A.L.C.Y.) brew club. Here are a couple pics. I wish I would have taken more but I was also taking video and being busy working on an Imperial Triple Partigyle brew.



This is my set up and this was when I first got there. You can see Geno in the background with his three tier system too.



This was the mash of the Imperial Triple. We packed in almost 50lbs of grain for the partigyle and I think it could have held another 5 lbs of grain easily! That's a shitload of grain! After mashing it I immediately started to vorlauf because it took almost 20 minutes to get a nice clean vorlauf going and by that time I was ready to sparge and collect.

The first runnings out of it were coming in at 1.100! That's what I wanted to hit but then I added another 4 lbs of sugar into the end of the boil and bumped it up to 1.170, which is a bit much so I plan on diluting it with some well aerated water in a couple of days.



And here are all the spent grains from everyone's mashes! After each person unloaded we all sampled the grain to see how much sugar was left. It was an interesting experiment. That's a lot of grain! And here's my recipe for the partigyle if you're interested:

40.00 lb Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 90.91 %
4.00 lb Wheat, Torrified (1.7 SRM) Grain 9.09 %
3.00 oz Magnum [14.00 %] (90 min) Hops 45.3 IBU
1 Pkgs Trappist Ale (White Labs #WLP500) Yeast-Ale

And like I said, I added 4 lbs of corn sugar to the end of the Imperial Triple, so don't forget it if you try this recipe.

Amarillo Hops - Review

Ahhhh, Amarillo hops. Amarillo hops been around for a while and they are a fantastic hop to use for any kind of straight up Amarillo pale ale or Amarillo IPA. Why? Well, first off, they are probably one of my favorite dual-purpose hops to use. Dual purpose, what's that? Well, Amarillo hops usually fall between 8-11% alpha acid content. That's a high enough alpha acid content to use them for both bittering and flavoring hops.

And as far as bittering goes, Amarillo hops give you a nice slightly clean bitterness. They have a high enough co-humulone rate (21-24) to give you enough of a bitter bite to your beer but not as much as say . . . chinook. But amarillo hops certainly make sure you know they are bittering your beer.

And the flavor of amarillo hops is outstanding. Amarillo hops are the only hops that I know of that give your beer a very distinct grapefruit flavor to them. Sure, there are plenty of hops out there that give plenty of citrus/lemon/orange flavor but amarillo hops are the only hops to give you grapefruit flavors. If you add enough for a flavoring addition or even dry hopping addition you beer will resemble something close to actually drinking grapefruit juice. If that's not for you then no problem.

So if you haven't used amarillo hops yet, I would highly suggest using them. Below is a recipe for an all amarillo Pale ale. Try it out if you wish and if you want to bump it up a bit more you can turn this recipe into an IPA with no issues at all, just by adding some more to the bittering and more for flavoring. Let me know what you think of the recipe if you brew it! And remember, the best way to figure out the profile of a hop is to use it in a single addition in a beer i.e. just use that hop through the recipe, no other hops.

And remember, all ingredients can be purchased through Ben's Homebrew.

Amarillo Pale Ale 5 gallon batch, 2.5 gallon boil volume.

6.60 lb LME Golden Light (Briess) (4.0 SRM) Extract 92.96 %
0.50 lb Caramel Malt - 20L (Briess) (20.0 SRM) Grain 7.04 %
0.50 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (60 min) Hops 21.9 IBU
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops -
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (10 min) Hops 15.9 IBU
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (0 min) Hops -
1 Pkgs Safale (DCL Yeast #US-05) Yeast-Ale

Growing Hops at Home - Video

This is the latest video from Ben's Homebrew. Growing Hops at Home covers what kind of mulch to use for growing hops, what kind of string to use for growing hops, chemical fertilizers for growing hops, harvesting rhizomes, training hop bines, trimming hop bines, and warding off aphids and mites that may decimate your hops at home. Check it out and please feel free to rate, comment or subscribe! Thanks!