Too long in secondary?

What went wrong? Was this supposed to happen? Should I throw it out? What do I do now?

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HopHeadToo
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Too long in secondary?

Post by HopHeadToo »

Ok I am new at brewing and had what I think is a basic question......What is too long a time frame in a secondary? I racked the beer into the secondary and left on business trip, it has now been almost 4 weeks. Is this too long? Do I need to run it threw a filter to clean it up? Any ideas?
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slothrob
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Too long in secondary

Post by slothrob »

You can leave a beer in secondary for a long time. High alcohol beers are sometimes left in secondary for as long as a year.

You don't want to leave a beer in primary for a really long time, because the yeast will start to die and add off-flavors to the beer. I'm not sure how long that is, exactly. I try to get a beer out of primary within a month, but I know you can go longer. I also know that 6 months isn't a good idea :oops:

There shouldn't be any reason that you would need to filter your beer that I can think of.
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HopHeadToo
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Post by HopHeadToo »

Thank you. Appreciate the info
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Post by The Professor »

My Barleywine/Burton Ale, my strong Porters, my Ballantine IPA clone, and usually my Scotch Ales routinely spend from 6 months to a year in secondary. To me, it is essential for getting the character I want from these brews.

Even beers that aren't hi-test brews like these will be unharmed by a long secondary for the most part.
Most will actually benefit from it.
HopHeadToo
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Post by HopHeadToo »

Great advice....it makes me feel better. Especially after I just kegged it. I am gonna let it carb slowly......I will post an update in about 2 or so weeks about how it turned out. Thanks Eric
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