October 18, 2004

Railsback Red

Brewed up a batch of Railsback Irish Red on Sunday, and it's bubbling along nicely:

Should be ready to rack to the secondary by Sunday, then I'll keg it on Halloween. Once the Red is in the secondary I will be brewing up my first batch of Porter.

Posted by Kevin Railsback at 10:42 PM

August 12, 2004

Why secondary?

There's an interesting discussion about the function of secondary fermentation over at the Northern Brewer forums. It seems that "secondary fermentation" is a bit of misnomer since very little (if any) fermentation happens at that stage.

In my experience, you can skip the secondary phase altogether in most cases if you're going to keg your beer. If you're force carbonating, don't rush it, though, unless you absolutely have to -- waiting 4-5 days under proper pressure usually produces a fine-tasting beer.

Posted by Chad Dickerson at 07:13 AM | Comments (0)