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Author Topic: Purpose of secondary fermentation beyond clarifying?  (Read 13509 times)

Offline skyler

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Re: Purpose of secondary fermentation beyond clarifying?
« Reply #30 on: April 12, 2011, 12:01:19 am »
To answer the OP, clarity is not necessary for that style, but you may want a longer fermentation time on such a big beer. I would give it at least 3 weeks in primary, personally. Clarity will not hurt the beer, though.

I sometimes use secondaries as bright tanks when I know my keg will get moved around a bunch and I want to harvest the yeast from primary. When I do this, I crash to 30F, then rack into secondary and add some kind of fining agent like gelatin or isinglass, then I wait a few days before racking - that gives me crystal clear beer from the very first pint.