Secondary fermentation in conical fermenter

Brewhaa

After taking a 15 year break from brewing, I resurrected my 7gal conical fermenter, and boiled up a batch of American Light. I'm a little rusty with timing and procedure. After 4 days of a healthy fermentation, I dumped about a cup of trub. Everything looks great. If I remember correctly, I can just leave it in the conical unit for another two weeks for secondary fermentation? Over the course of the next few weeks, should I dump another one or two times? I intend on kegging after secondary. That will be for another thread. Thanks in advance.

VikeMan

You can definitely leave the beer in the conical while the yeast remaining in suspension finish the fermentation and cleanup. It's not really a "secondary fermentation," but then neither is it a secondary fermentation when beer is simply moved to a new, "secondary," vessel.
You can dump trub again or not. Personally, I wouldn't bother, unless I was planning to leave the beer in the fermenter for a really long time. Speaking of which, you mentioned "over the next few weeks." Most beers don't need to be in any kind of fermenter for that long. What are you brewing?

Brewhaa

Im brewing an American Light from Brewers Best. The instructions have you ferment for up to a week and secondary for two weeks. I had this in the conical fermenter since 9/10. Maybe I will keg on 9/25.

VikeMan

For whatever reason, most kit instructions haven't caught up with brewing trends of the last decade or more. Personally, I would let it clear in the conical and keg from there.

hotbeer

If you have a conical, I too recommend you just leave it in the conical and bottle straight from it if you are able to dump the trub from it and not have to much clinging to the sides of the FV.
Though even that small amount of trub will likely just be more sediment on the bottom of the bottle. So if you use a glass and careful poor no issue.
However bottling from the conical might depend a lot on what type conical you have. But if you have the Sanitary 1.5" or 2" fittings you can get a hose barb adapter for it and bottle directly from from it.
And sight glasses make it simple to see if you've dumped all the trub so you can get to clear beer to bottle.

Brewhaa

@Brewhaa .. welcome back to the hobby! I agree with the above, only dump once for most every beer, other then some heavily dry hopped beers, those I dump a second time before kegging. Typically I'll dump trub after a week then leave it go for another week or 10 days, check gravity, then I cold crash for a day or 2, then keg. Your process will depend on your equipment.
Cheers!