Displaying a reckless disregard for beer style guidelines since 2003
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I racked to secondary twice in my early days and both times my beer got infected … so now I don’t bother. I usually keg after one week in primary for ales and 2 weeks for lagers … but have left ales for as long as 2 and lagers for as long as 3 weeks in primary with no ill effects.
From all I’ve heard, you can safely leave it in the primary for up to four weeks (sometimes longer) with little to no impact. Because of that, I will only rack to secondary when I’m doing something special.
For example, my Hazelmocha Cream Stout was racked to secondary because I used coffee, cacao nibs, and hazelnuts. That was a special case.