Secondary?

[Root Skier]

Do you use a secondary just to clarify?
Why do you want to get the beer off the yeast cake?
At what gravity do you want to rack the beer over?

[BradyFumbled]

I only use a secondary for my lagers for an extended aging time, and occasionally with ales for fruit or spice additions, or anything else that might need extended aging.

The way I see it, for a typical 2-3 week standard fermentation, there are no ill-effects on 5 gallons of beer sitting on an inch or two of yeast. As far as I'm concerned, the risk of oxygenation and/or infection during the transfer far outweigh any potential reward.

Just my $.02

If you must secondary, your gravity should be close to your target FG.

[FrozenInTime]

I don't do secondaries any longer. I also don't sweat having wort/beer on the trub up to 4 weeks as long as it's in the 60s. I did at one time do it for adding fruit/more hops but see no benefit to that either as putting it in after primary works just as good, IMHO. If I need to do it because of time constraints, I find I can transfer just as quick/easily to a keg.

[mashani]

I don't bother with a secondary most of the time. The only beer I secondaried in recent memory was a Quad that was pitched on a multi-generation yeast cake that went from patersiber to dubbel to quad (as in there was some really really old yeast in there by the time the quad got past primary and the cake was really huge).

> Why do you want to get the beer off the yeast cake?

If you were using ceiling to floor narrow/tall fermenters in a factory type environment, you want to get rid of the old yeast because there is tremendous amounts of pressure on the yeast cake, and that can cause problems. But at our scale, I don't think anything bad will happen unless you leave it on 6+ weeks.

[haerbob3]

me it is how I do things, grew up making wine and the habit carried over. I do it mainly to clear my beers. Most of my beers are of the high ABV it helps. I rarely dry hop. I use hop teas for flavor and aroma at kegging time.

[Root Skier]

Here's why I asked. I have a winter ale fermenting (viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11&view=unread#p25938) and it tastes really damn good. I went through the trouble to sanitize the hydro tube, but it was so tasty I just drank it instead.

It's SG yesterday was 1.021 which is pretty damn close to the predicted of 1.018. I'd like this to be clear. Would now be the right time to move to secondary? I brewed this on 12/30/13.

[Kealia]

Honestly? I would just leave it in primary. You brewed on 12/30 so it has been fermenting for 11 days. If you want to get good clarity, let it ride for another week or two where it is (primary). Then, cold crash for 2-7 days (depending on your schedule) and use a siphon to rack it to either a bottling bucket or keg. The US-04 should compact nicely for you without the need for a secondary at all.

[berryman]

I use a secondary on the majority of my 5 gal batches, here's my reasoning. Yes I think it tends to make a clearer beer but that isn't always a concern for me because I brew a lot of dark ambers and a lot of dark beers in general anyways. My main reasons for using a secondary is so I can brew more beer, once the primary fermentation is done I can rack and free up my primary and brew more, then no time limit so to speak on getting it bottled, and in the meantime while setting in the secondary you are getting some good conditioning time. It's a matter of preference, most likely not needed to do but it works good for my brewing schedule.

[haerbob3]

I have taking to adding isnglass when I keg. The beer falls very clear in the keg. I have not tried it with bottling.