to avoid oxidation in 2ndry?

Relax, etc., etc. First off, why are you adding sugar to the secondary? You don't want to add the sugar (unless you are trying to up the alcohol) until you are ready to bottle/keg. If you add the sugar now, it will all ferment out and you will have to add more at bottling time. Second, opening your lid will not have an adverse reaction to your beer. The layer of CO2 above the beer will protect it. Same goes for removing the airlock. As long as you transfer "quietly" (no splashing), there will be no problem. If your primary is a bottling bucket (pail with a spigot), you can hook a tube to the spigot and transfer (rack) that way. Just remember to try not to splash the beer around too much. Cheers,

Your secondary IS glass, right?

Some of my brews only fermet for a little over 2 weeks and then they are ready to go to the bottle. MMMMM...... Brings up a question I need to post. I will have to do that in a bit. Anyways, what I was going to make a point of, is if the gravity is unchanging for a few days would it not be about ready to go straight to a bottle and forget the secondary? I have done that several times and the final product has always turned out just fine.

RE: feedback that does not utilize 2ndry... Is not the promary point of racking to secondary to provide add'l aging and clarification? Secondarily, is there not also add'l conversion by yeast?

hydrometer reading 2

This ain't wine my friend. As long as you don't have the siphon tube splashing all about you are fine. I would like to know what you are making, and would tell you you really should not go over 2 weeks in a primary because you will get some funky "yeast bite" from autolysis (the dead yeast breaking down) in the secondary you can be good for up to six or so but I have never secondaried for more that 2 weeks, than again I only make ale thus far, BUT, winters comin' and I got a nice 40 degree root cellar!!

dlihcsnatas wrote on 10/27/2006 9:41 PM:

The secondary is for clarity and aging. You would notice a big difference in those beers if you age them an additional 4-6 weeks. I always found that the beers I bottled quickly always tasted better right about the time they are all gone. That is, after they aged.

Jim

Thanks to all the respondents who have added to my brewing education. I am enjoying brewing with an inquiring mind. Attitude there is always time to learn a lot while "relaxing...with another homebrew."

First brew happening is a look-alike Listermanns kit "Anchor Steam" containing both malt extract and grains. Yeast is a bottom fermenting type for Ale. Hops are Nothern.

The replies in this newsgroup and others re: brewing display a marked dissimiliarity of experiences, advise. Even the "all about" brew books by various authors write dissimiliar explanations and methodologies. As a result of theses dissimiliar "cults" I'll continue this brew as follows:

1) Two weeks+ in Primary ( and then after hydrometer reading is stable two consequitive days... 2) ...Transfer by slow sanbtized sipon, avoiding disturbing turb/sediment, to sanitized glass carboy... clarification and aging... Record F.G. and other pertinent observations 4) Transfer again to bottling bucket containing dissolved charging sugars and from there immediately into sanitized bottles. 5) Test and record taste and sensiometric, rheologic, morphological, high resolution scanning electron photomicrographs, tongue scrapings, etc.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus opps, I mean a "scientific appraoch" complete with note and observations...This brew has been named KBOO GUD BRUE to honor the early observations of the ill-fated attemp to establish a colony on Roanoke Island off South Carolina as described in the writing by Thomas Hariot "Narrative of the First English Plantation"in which he stated early brewing developments. I expect to report results in 4+ weeks on this forum of insights/experiences from initial attempt to find a "best approach synthesized from various online and print authors"

Oh yeah, for those who are encouraging with thier info and input Thanks For those who are casual and find 2ndry and re-racking and other tasks, as they write, "anal".. Thanks for you thoughts. Final observation, at this time, sip a beer and realize that "tongue in cheek" exposes the largest surface area for the greatest number of taste buds!

You know I am a bit of a procrastinator on most everything but wanting to try my latest creation. I think that you have shown me the light on this Jim. Reason is that I have had a bottle or two that had gotten tucked away in the back only to be found several months down the road after all the others from that batch had already been drank and found they seemed much better than I remembered them being. While the ones I let age for only 2 months in the bottle was good the ones that had aged

5 or 6 did seem better. You have made me think that on the batches I have going now that I better go for secondary, but then there is that part of me that worries about getting too much splash or worse some outside organism in it and the whole thing goes belly up. I have been checking out conicals and that is how I ended up on this site, but when I finally get my hands on one of these conicals I will be doing the secondary.

The benefits of the secondary easily outweigh the risk especially if you are even moderately careful.