Secondary Transfer

Yesterday was the second big day in the brewing cycle. We transfered the beer from the primary fermenter to what's called a secondary. The majority of the beer's fermentation is done now, but in the primary it was sitting on all sorts of nasty stuff, such as yeast and excess proteins that are created during the process. The beer tends to stay cloudy unless it is removed from all this gunk, and so although not necessary, it's generally considered good practice to move it to a secondary. This is a large (5 gallon) glass bottle, in which the beer sit for two weeks to clear up and allow the flavors to smooth out more. From this container, the beer will be transfered to a bucket for bottling, and immediately put in the bottles, where it will carbonate over a period of 3 weeks.

In order to get the beer from one container to the other without disturbing it too much or exposing it to much oxygen, we use a siphon. The beer flows smoothly and slowly through the siphon tube to the other container, without stirring it up much and causing oxidation. If the beer was overexposed to oxygen, it would cause bad flavors to develop. In addition we made sure to sanitize the bottle and everything that would come in contact with our beer, as infections can still take hold and ruin our work thus far.

We also sanitized a shot glass, and snuck a small drink of the beer to taste test. It was rough, and a little on the bitter side, but definitely drinkable, even warm and uncarbonated. We took this as a good sign... if we can see ourselves being able to drink the stuff at it's worst, it should be pretty tasty when it finishes. A lot can happen in 2 weeks, so hopefully the flavors will smooth out, the bitterness will subside some, and we'll have a killer beer.

- Adam