DIPA Kit secondary fermentation question

Just keep your beer in the primary and skip the transfer to the secondary. This advice is applicable for all types of brewing: all-grain, partial mash or extract.

The transfer to a secondary is an unneeded step and you eliminate the potential for adding air (oxygen) to the beer or infection from the secondary.

Best of luck with your DIPA.

Cheers!

 

What Jack said.
'Rack to Secondary' is one of several Zombie brewing techniques promoted by the carboy industrial complex.

True secondary fermentation occurs in the bottle during carbonation.
As for bottling directly from the primary...might could be better to first rack the beer into a bottling bucket.
Otherwise...you'll rouse the trub layer when you mix the priming sugar and that taint good.

 

Listen to Jack. Unless there is a reason to Secondary (like extended bulk aging or racking onto fruit or wood or something), don't bother. BTW, moving beer to a secondary carboy (or other container) isn't actually a "secondary fermentation" unless you are adding more sugars for the yeast to eat. My guess is that your DIPA recipe is not adding sugars in the secondary.

 

There was a NHC presentation where Steve Parks called the primary when the yeast consume sugars and the secondary was when the yeast switched to the clean up phase using the VDKs and acetaldehyde as the energy sources. That can happen in the primary tank (conical unitank) or in a secondary (lagering tank for a lager brewer). Production brewers use a 2 tank process due to pressure on the yeast, though they can dump yeast with a conical. In the early days of homebrewing the processes mimicked the commercial brewers, as that is where the knowledge came from.

This was in 2010 so you don't have to be a member to view. See the bottom axis of slide 20. There are some nice pictures of brewery fermenters in this. A lot of good information is in here too.
http://www.ahaconference.org/wp-con...ions/2010/Aged_to_Perfection-Steve_Parkes.pdf

 

Yeah, the topic of ‘secondary’ can sometimes be semantically confusing.

In the original post it was stated: “I noticed in the instructions that they recommend a secondary fermentation in a carboy prior to bottling. I have the equipment for a secondary fermentation…”

I bolded the word “fermentation” since that is the semantically confusing part of the above statement.

When an individual transfers from a primary fermenter to another vessel (e.g., a carboy) after primary fermentation is complete there is no additional fermenting going on in the secondary vessel. What is happening in that secondary vessel is the potential for conditioning; i.e., clean-up of the VDKs and acetaldehyde.

I purposefully call the secondary vessel simply a “secondary”; I purposefully omit the word “fermentation”.

For those homebrewers who bottle condition their beers a genuine secondary fermentation does occur there: in the bottle.

Cheers!

 

In my experience the beer takes about a week for primary fermentation depending on yeast strain it could take 4 days. I then let it sit another week to clean up and condition. Then bottle condition 2 weeks for the flavors to finally meld and become balanced. If you strain the wort properly and remove all the hop particles you won't need to worry about transferring the beer off the trub to secondary carboy. The reason being is because all those hop particles can impart a nasty grassy and vegetable flavor. Strain properly and you can do the entire fermentation and clean up process in one carboy.