Wallace South Brew News

I racked the NoopleTucker into the secondary fermenter last night. I use a clean and sanitized 5 gallon glass carboy as my secondary fermentor. I try to do secondary fermentation on most of the beers I make. Secondary fermentation simply means that you siphon (or rack) the beer off of the lees (yeast sediment) at the bottom of the primary fermenter. This is an important step for two reasons:

• The first reason is that over time, the lees begin to decompose. This occurs because the lees consist mostly of dead yeast cells and cold break protein compounds. The decomposition can add to off-flavors in some beer styles. So, racking the beer into a secondary fermenter buys you time if you can't bottle your beer right away (you can leave your beer in secondary for a couple of weeks). As I often travel for work, I will take any time flexibility that I can get. Because of this extra time, most people recommend that you use a glass vessel as your secondary fermenter, as plastic allows some oxygen transfer over time and can oxidize your beer.
• The second reason is that it helps the beer to clear better. Basically, when you move the primary fermenter around, some of the lees gets stirred up into suspension. This gets transferred to your secondary fermenter, where it again has a chance to settle out. If you were to bottle straight from the primary fermenter, you would be more likely to pick up sediment that goes into your bottles.

The NoopleTucker tasted very good for this point in the fermentation. I could still taste some yeast, but because this is a wheat beer, that is almost a good thing. I detected no off-flavors (so far) and the beer had a nice smooth nuttiness to it. I was not expecting this last element at all, but it tastes great. The beer as a nice dark brown color to it, almost mahogany. I am very excited about this beer. I will keep you posted.