Longer in secondary fermenter?

typically i do 1 week in primary and 1 week in secondary then bottling. would my beer benefit from a longer stint in secondary, like say a week longer? or should i keep the time in the fermenters the same and let the beer condition in the bottles for 2-3 weeks? thank you for any help.

This could be the start of a long thread since there are so many different opinions. Here's my 2 cents:

More time in the primary (and possibly no secondary at all) for most beers may give the best results. I base that by what Chris White & Jamil Zainasheff has said in interviews and their new book "Yeast" --also, my own experience seems to be showing this to be true.  
Current example: I have a horrible tasting Weizen that is improving daily as it continues to sit in the primary letting the yeast clean it up.

It also has to do with individual fermenting conditions.  I oxygenate my beer, add yeast nutrients and keep my beer at 72 F so the lower alc beers ferment quickly.  It's about 5-7 days for the primary, 5-7 for the secondary.

My heavy beers can go a few weeks in primary and up to a month in secondary.

I truly recommend reading the Chris White book on Yeast.  I have only found the time to read  a bit and it has been very helpful.

My 2 cents

I leave all beers in the primary for about 3 weeks. I no longer use a secondary unless it is for something special? I also dry hop in the primary as long as I am not going to reuse the yeast cake. I may reuse the dry hopped yeast cake for some Big IPA? Anyway I used to basically used the one week in the primary, two week in the secondary and three week in the bottle method. (1-2-3) The primary soak? cleans up a beer and infers no taste problems. The secondary has it's place but for me it is used rarely.

Hey Bob,

  I assume you are using 6 1/2 glass carboy. I have 10 5 gallon glass ones. Bummer.

myself I generally do 21 days primary 21 or longer in secondary

I pretty much always do 7 days primary, 7 days secondary, and a minimum of 3 weeks bottle condition. I always add gelatin to the secondary about 3-4 days before bottling for clarification (I don't do irish moss in the kettle) and the gelatin works great! I'm originally a wine maker of 10 years and then crossed-over to brewing so I have a hard time accepting a long primary with the beer sitting on a bed of dead yeast, because in winemaking that is considered undesirable. I will have to read the book about yeast and see if I cahnge my thoughts, until then I'm happy with my results. Cheers!

Ok, secondary can be as long as you need to.  I generally use just a primary unless I am brewing a high gravity beer like a Belgian Tripel or a Russian Imperial Stout.  Those can be in a secondary for a year or more and taste great.  For regular beers like an Amber ale, I just use a primary for 3 to 4 weeks and then bottle condition.  I generally go by the philosophy that "The best beer of any batch is the last one you open."

Cheer

Shaneoco1981 said:

I generally go by the philosophy that "The best beer of any batch is the last one you open."

Cheer

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So true! Sooooo true.