Beer, Part 2 -- Secondary Fermentation

It is, without a doubt, even within the confines of my air conditioned home, too hot to knit. But it is not too hot to contemplate beer. In fact, around my house, we happen to think that a cool frosty beer is a perfect complement to a hot day. So my next two posts are going to be about homebrewing. Specifically, the secondary fermentation and kegging process, demonstrated with the help of our most recent beer, a Trappist Ale.

This post may not make much sense if you haven't seen my Beer, Part 1 post where we set up the primary fermentation. The primary ferment is where most of the alcohol generation process occurs. It's all about yeast chowing down on the malt sugars that are provided for their dining pleasure. Yeast munch on sugar and belch out ethanol and a whole collection of tasty aromatic compounds. Most primary fermentations last for somewhere between 1 and 3 weeks (it really depends on the beer and the yeast involved). We left our IPA in for a week of primary fermentation, but Belgian-style ales prefer to ferment a bit longer. We left ours in the primary fermentation for about 2 weeks, even though the yeast activity had died down after about 5 days.

The Lid Comes Off the First Fermentation of the Belgian Ale

After we took the lid off, you could see all the hop leaves had floated to the top. One thing we decided that we like about using actual hop cones (as opposed to the hop pellets) is that they form a nice layer and are easy to separate from the beer. John is all about creating clear beer, so this was very cool to him. Apparently when you are choosing between hop cones and pellet hops (which look like little pellets of rabbit food) you are choosing the more "natural" route versus the ability to get a consistant product. Pellet hops have a very reliable amount of bittering qualities while cone hops can be quite variable, as growth conditions vary from year to year, etc.

Setting Up the Second Fementation: Transfer to the Carbuoy

The next thing that happens is moving the proto-beer (I suspect there is an official term for it, but I haven't learned it yet) into a second fermentation vessel, in this case, a glass carbuoy. My understanding of the second fermentation is that it is mostly about letting the beer "think" and clear. No more sugar is added, so there's nothing really to stir the yeast up again, although plenty of yeast do make it through the transfer. Sometimes it is also a time to add additional flavors. Some IPAs, for instance, are "dry hopped", which means that some additional hops are added when the proto-beer goes into the second fermentation vessel.

The Second Fermentation In Progress

Apparently, it's best to move the second fermentation to a glass vessel, because you don't have to worry about the beer developing any strange flavors as a result as sitting in a plastic pail for long periods of time. Since this Belgian-style Trappist aie needs another two weeks (at least) to consider its future, we opted for glass, which can't impart any undesireable flavors for the beer.

You can see John checking the temperature in this picture (with the help of a cat). We love our basement because it is just about the perfect temperature for brewing ales (between 68-70 degress Farenheit) and relatively dark. When we weren't checking in on the beer, the carbuoy sat underneath a cardboard box because when beer is thinking, it likes its privacy.

We had to wait two weeks for our beer to be ready for the next phase. But you'll get to find out the results tomorrow!