[denny]

Wort sugar balance and yeast strain selection are better ways to control attenuation.

THIS^^^^^...especially the former.

[hopfenundmalz]

I have read that Pilsner Urquel crashes at a certain gravity, and this leaves some of the characteristic Diacetyl profile this beer has. If you ever get a chance to drink the unfiltered unpasteurized PU, well, it still has yeast in suspension, and no Diacetyl. Just wanted to point out a case where a beer is crashed early.

I also know some home Brewers of a certain age, that still rack to secondary, and they make some darned good beer.

[SHILLA]

I can't comment on the tradeoffs regarding when and if to move beer into a secondary but for some people it does seem to work well.  For example, the winner of the scottish & irish ale category from last years brew competition (Sept/Oct 2014, Zymurgy Magazine, pg. 64) moved his beer into the secondary after only 4 days in the primary!   This caught my attention and was the motivation for my question.   

I typically leave my beer in the primary for 10-14 days and move to a secondary for 7-14 days.  I'm still in the learning stages and have only been brewing for 1.5 years… although I've brewed about 25 times now and recently shifted to all grain… and am working through the challenges to hit target OG levels. 

[denny]

IMO, the point with secondary isn't so much that there's something wrong with it as that it often (usually) just isn't necessary.

[HoosierBrew]

IMO, the point with secondary isn't so much that there's something wrong with it as that it often (usually) just isn't necessary.

+1.  I used a secondary for years when it was the thing to do. And I still use one on occasion for dry hopping and for fruit.  I'm just thrown by somebody deliberately racking to secondary before fermentation is done.

[ynotbrusum]

I have nothing against those who think there is a benefit to racking to secondary, but like Marshall says : don't claim that it somehow improves the beer...I use kegs as bright tanks, but that is for clarifying at lager temps when I am simultaneously carbonating and then later transferring keg to keg with a spunding valve for a clean transport (i.e., settling out all yeast so that the transported beer isn't stirring up yeast that settled out).  Long term sours, fruit beers, heavily dry hopped, etc.. will see a secondary, but if I can avoid a secondary, I do.  Not that anyone else has to follow my practice - I just do what works for me after trying it out for myself.  (Per a noted Noti-ite.)

I always take that position, except with a neighbor who is convinced that Star San is dangerous, so he only uses Iodophor!!

[Joe Sr.]

IMO, the point with secondary isn't so much that there's something wrong with it as that it often (usually) just isn't necessary.

After years and years of religiously racking to a secondary I slowly drifted away from it out of laziness and having other things occupy my time (children being one of those).

Since failing to use a secondary didn't seem to harm my beer in any way I simply stopped doing it.

If you want to do it or feel you need to do it, and you do it carefully, there shouldn't be any issues with using a secondary.  It's just one more thing to sanitize, etc. though.

But using it as a mechanism for controlling gravity seems like a risk.

[Slowbrew]

I have the same general story as others.  Used a secondary for years and then was convinced on this forum to skip it and just let the primary sit for another week or two.  I haven't seen any issues and actually have a little less incidence of off flavors.

I do rack into secondaries for lagers but even that is mostly because my glass primaries are too tall and too heavy to easily go into the lagering fridge.

Paul