Primary fermentor

Northern Brewer General
1

I am brewing my first batch of La Petite Orange ale, and the recipe states to take it out of the primary carboy after one week. I am still getting bubbles from the airlock, so should I leave it in the primary longer, maybe two weeks?

2

Let it sit in the primary for 2-3 weeks then bottle. No need to secondary.

3

Even with a deluxe two stage kit?

4

Oh… the DELUXE two stage kit… well then!

Just having some fun with ya. Yes, I still would not secondary. There are two schools of thought on secondaries and if they’re needed. You’ll have to choose for yourself, but my thinking along with many others is there are only a few reasons to secondary.

  1. Dry hopping, but even then some just toss the hops into the primary.
  2. Adding fruit, oak, other post fermentation additions
  3. Extended aging for bigger beers
  4. Collecting yeast from primary

When you rack to secondary you are introducing your beer to oxygen which you really don’t want to do. When I do use a secondary fermentor, I always purge the carboy with CO2 to try and knock as much O2 out as possible. You are also taking a chance (however small) of having some sort of bacteria get in there and an infection starting. This is highly unlikely, but why take the chance? Some will secondary to clear up their beer, but beer can be cleared up further downstream like in the keg or bottle while cold conditioning. Another reason some would secondary is to free up a primary fermentor and if that’s the reason, go buy another primary… nah… go buy 2 more!

You decide which route you’d like to go. I wouldn’t secondary any beer except for the reasons listed above.

5

Thanks dobe12! As you can tell by my question, I am new to this, so I appreciate all the help I can get! I am an RN, and I questioned the two stage right off the bat due to the bacteria introduction. The instructions to each recipe are a bit vague and misleading, to say the least. If you siphon the primary properly into the bottling bucket, and sanitize your equipment, you eliminate one extra step for bacteria to enter your brew, correct?

Thanks again!

Tim :cheers: