New Brewer needs help - Carboy Use
Hello Everybody
This is my first post. Sorry for the Dumb questions also in advance.
I bought my first Kit on Saturday and Just made my first Batch just yesterday. It is fermenting as we speak. I made an American Cream Ale.
My question is After it is done fermenting in 3-7 days what do i do?
I have seen some people recommend doing a secondary fermentation. If i do this do i use the Carboy for the secondary fermentation
Another question I have is when I prime the beer for bottling am I bottling from the carboy or the plastic fermenter. Thank you in advance for any help.
You dont have to put it into a secondary, but if you choose to do so you are better off using a car boy at this stage due to less surface area (Less air is able to make contact with you beer) When you go to bottle you are better off siphoning the brew into the bottling bucket. The bucket makes it easier because you are able to turn off the flow at the bottling bucket spout if you need to and you don't have to start a siphon because gravity will do all the work. Also when you are siphoning from the fermenter to the bottling bucket make sure you add the priming sugar before you siphon. Boil the sugar in about a cup of water for about 4-5 min stirring often. Cover and let stand until cool. Add this to the bottling bucket and then siphon your brew into the bucket. Try not to siphon the sediment that is at the bottom of the fermenter this could lead to foggy beer and unpleasant tastes. Good luck and I hope the brew turns out well.
I have two answers for you.
1) Secondary is completely up tot he brewer. There is not "law" that says you have to. There are some advantages to a secondary though. The first is clarity. Racking from primary to secondary allows the beer to clear out more as solids drop to the bottom of the secondary. Cloudy beers such as hefs or wit probably won't benifit form this too much. Another advantage is aging. I have personally found that aging in the secondary is pretty nice and I usually age in secondary for a week to 10 days. A third advantage to racking to secondary (and this doesn't happen much, but should be spoken about) is yeast autolysis. This would usually be seen if you left the beer in the primary for obnoxious amounts of time (months) and is when the yeast cake at the bottom begins to eat itself for food. Think of it as yeast cannibolism. This can produce some crazy off flavors and will most likely ruin your brew. I wouldn't reall worry about this too much. If you can buy glass carboys, they will serve you best becasue they are easy to keep sanitized. Plastic secondary's work, but surface scratches in the vessel can be hiding places for bacteria and off flavors. Buy a glass carboy...you'll be glad you did.
2) I have a plastic bottling bucket with a spigot at the bottom. I rack from secondary into this vessel and bottle in it. It's easy becasue the bottling wand plugs right into the spigot and has a spring loaded tip. They makes things easier. At this point, though, I keg everything so it has really ceased to be an issue for me. You would find it quite difficult to bottle from a glass carboy....don't do it. Either keg or get a bottling bucket and bottling wand....you'll be glad you did.
Good luck!
I pretty much agree with what everyone has said so far. One thing I wanted to clarify in your post is that your beer may ferment in 3 - 7 days but the only thing that determines if your brew is done is your final gravity. Use your hydrometer and once your final gravity has stayed the same for 3 days in a row then you know its done.
Even after your beer is done fermenting, the yeast still need time to clean up any by products they may have produced. I usually keep my beers in primary for 10 - 14 days and then rack to my secondary to let it clear. Once it's in my secondary I let it sit for another 10 - 14 days. You can let your beer sit in the primary for 3-4 weeks (if you don't have a secondary fermenter) without any problems, but I only have 1 primary fermenter so I use secondaries to free it up.
I definitely recommend using a bottling bucket and bottling wand. I think the only way to make it easier would be to keg. Good luck and welcome to the forum.
Thank you everyone for the quick reply this is a great community. I will definitely be using the glass carboy that i got with my kit i just need to get a bottling bucket now.
Another question i have is when doing the secondary fermentation nothing has to be added like additional yeast right?
limprizol wrote:
Thank you everyone for the quick reply this is a great community. I will definitely be using the glass carboy that i got with my kit i just need to get a bottling bucket now.
Another question i have is when doing the secondary fermentation nothing has to be added like additional yeast right?
Technically, there isn't much fermenting going on in a secondary. A secondary would be used mostly to allow better clearing of the beer, by letting the solids settle more to the bottom. Of course, if you do add something fermentable, it will kick off again. Generally, fruit or honey can be added in secondary. The reason you would wait until primary is complete, is because during primary fermentation, the yeasties are eating up all the simple and complex sugars from the grains/extract. The action can be so vigorous, that it actually drives off any fruit or honey flavors and aromas. So by using a secondary, one can allow a more "deep" addition to the batch.
I would say for a cream ale, you don't need to add anything in secondary. Just rack it over, stick a bubbler on, and wait, wait, wait..... I would say go for at least 10 days, maybe two weeks....
Welcome to our obsession. 
I make 5-1/2gal batches and ferment in a 6 gal plastic bottling bucket , rack to a 5 gal glass carboy ( I lose 1/2 gal to yeast cake & trub) usually completly filling it. Sit for another week, back to the bottling bucket w/ priming sugar, & into the bottles.
Only one serious piece of advice, patience is your friend. Brew often & after a couple months it becomes much easier to wait for that next batch, cause you've got 6 different brews to choose from today.
I've done secondary fermentation and also just primary.
I use glass carboys for everything. If I make a 3 gallon batch I use a 5 gallon carboy. If I do a secondary I just use a 5 gallon carboy whether I make 3 gallons or 5. It hasn't affected my beers at all.
As for your beer currently in primary. You could leave it there for another week, then when you're ready to bottle syphon it off into carboy and add priming sugar into it. Just be sure to not disturb the trub on the bottom of the primary container.
DC
Personally, I am big on secondary. Just my preference although I have made beers with only primary fermentations and they came out good.
Since you're so new to the process, you're probably going to need to use your primary fermenter for a bottling bucket so I'd tell you to go ahead and rack it over to secondary when it's done with primary ... that way you'll have a bucket clear to bottle from without the expenditure. Trust me, you do NOT want to have to bottle out of the carboy. Major pain in the backside.
You can also skip the bottling bucket stage entirely, though. They sell priming tabs which you just drop in the bottom of each bottle and fill on top of. If you do it this way, you can concievably skip secondary AND racking over to the bottling bucket. I personally don't care for this method, but some people like the process because they can skip a few steps and not worry too much about over-carbonating.
Thank you everyone for the information. I am so excited to start some more brews also. Another quick question i have is;
At work i have 5 Gallon Water Jugs that are made of plastic and they say "for use with water only" Would it be a bad idea to use these as a secondary.