When to rack to a secondary

As part of my Brew Year's Resolutions, I wanted to grow the site's social media presence a bit. The Facebook page is handicapped a bit since it is marked as "Alcohol Related" which means the page can't join groups. Instead I have joined a couple groups under my personal profile, where I will occasionally share content from the site or the site's pages. 

Racking a recent batch to a secondary.

In one of these groups I recently joined, a new brewer dared to ask about racking or transferring your beer to a secondary fermenter. Racking, or transferring beer out of a primary fermenter into a secondary vessel is one of those traditional homebrewing practices that fell out of favor. Now the prevailing opinion is that racking to a secondary accomplishes very little if anything, while exposing your beer to oxygen and a greater risk of contamination. Most of the replies to this new brewer rejected the practice out of hand.

That gave me an idea to link to my post about the topic. Then I realized this is never a topic I touched on in this space. I have the Mandella Effect even with my own work sometimes.

In 2025 is there ever a need to rack to a secondary? My answer: sometimes!

When I bought my first ever ingredient kit, I splurged for the higher-end kit that came with a five-gallon glass carboy for secondary fermentation. My first ever batch I fermented for a week in a plastic bucket. I managed to fit the bucket inside of an empty cabinet, and would open the door just to watch bubbles come out of the airlock. Then, after seven days I siphoned the batch into the glass carboy where it sat for two weeks. I looked at that carboy full of that future beer and it wasn't really doing much. 

After that first batch came out excellent, I continued to use a secondary for almost all of my batches for years. It wasn't until I read more about brewers not doing it, that I stopped doing it for all of my batches. Over time I also grew to hate sanitizing another vessel, a siphon and tubing just to move my beer if I didn't feel it was making a positive difference. Not racking was just easier, even if I never completely abandoned the practice.

Let's start by discussing when racking is not necessary. If you are fermenting in a conical vessel and are able to dump your trub from the bottom, that eliminates one of the stated benefits of racking which is not keeping finished beer on top of the yeast for too long. This is especially true if you have a conical vessel which is temperature controlled where you can cold crash before dumping your trub. When racking to a secondary was a more common practice almost all homebrewers were still fermenting in plastic buckets and glass carboys. 

If you are a brewer with more modest kit such as myself, there are still times where racking your beer to a secondary fermenter has its benefits. 

Freeing up primary fermenters

This was the other reason why I racked for a long time. When I caught the brewing bug it wasn't uncommon for me to brew two batches a month. One batch would get a week in the primary, then it would go to a smaller secondary fermenter, which would free up the larger primary fermenter for a new batch. 

Currently I have one 6 gallon and one 6.5 gallon carboy that I can use as a primary fermenters. If I want to have more than two batches going, at least one of them needs to be racked if it is not ready to go into a keg. 

Harvesting yeast 

For those of us who can't open a valve and have yeast flow out of the bottom of your fermenter, sometimes you just need to get to the bottom of your fermentation to harvest some yeast. In the above photo I racked a batch to a secondary six days after pitching because I needed the yeast that day. The only way to get at the yeast was to move the liquid on top of it somewhere else. 

Some yeast strains benefit from racking

This might be the most controversial point in favor of racking, but I stand by it. Many ale strains with medium or worse flocculation will still have a layer of foam floating on the top of the beer even after active fermentation is complete. In an era before homebrewers had as wide of a variety of brewers yeasts available, both liquid and dry, it is not hard to imagine that finding yeast strains that would flocculate and make clear beer was not as easy as it is now. Siphoning from under that layer of foam into a new vessel undoubtedly helped brewers make clearer beer.

In my recent experience with a couple of different strains, racking to a secondary fermenter helped make clearer beer. The difference in clarity was noticeable when I fermented Old North Shore Ale with WLP008 East Coast Ale yeast. When brewing for competition at 2024 Ales over ALS, I really wanted that beer to bright. I racked and even dry hopped in the secondary.

Beyond appearance, a friend swears that his Hefeweizen isn't the same if he doesn't rack to a secondary to degas the beer to get the right aroma and flavor. This was his one recipe to win best of show in competition.

Extended aging

This should be the least controversial point in favor of racking to a secondary fermenter. If a beer, usually a high gravity beer, needs extended conditioning time, it is best to get it off the yeast cake. Also moving from a larger primary fermenter to a smaller secondary fermenter without the headspace needed for primary fermentation will result in less exposure to oxygen over time. 

Blending adjuncts/true secondary fermentation 

Often the best way to blend other ingredients is to add them into a secondary fermenter and rack your beer on top of it to ensure an even mixture. This can be especially true if the additional ingredients you are adding are fermentable like fruit - be it whole fruit, puree, or fruit juices. You can ensure an even mixture and a less vigorous fermentation as your yeast ferments the sugars in the fruit. Ideally this more gentle fermentation results in less flavor and aroma being blown off as it would if you added these before primary fermentation which is typically far more vigorous.

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