Is transfering to secondary necessary?

[Andy]

Andy, sadly it has been well over a year since I have brewed but the drought will soon be coming to an end provided the Air Force gets me a plane. Hopefully I'll have something in my secondary in a few weeks.

Awesome, nice that you are able to keep up on the hobby on the other side of the world. Stay safe and keep smiling!

[DBear]

Do any of you cold crash in your primary fermentor?

-Cheers

[beerocracy]

I almost always cold crash. I have a conical though and can go straight to keg without moving the fermentor so all of the crashed yeast stays behind.

[Test_Engineer]

so for you guys that don't secondary, when do you dry hop? Any combination of dry hop, cold crash, gelatin.....do you dry hop, then crash or crash then dry hop, and how long do you dry hop befor transfer of bottleing? I'm getting ready to a IPA, and I'd like to try it all in the Primary this time, just to see the difference.

[TapItGood]

I like dry hopping when fermentation has slowed, usually after a week or so. Let it finish out for another week. Then dry hop the keg too. mmmmmm IPA's!

[BigBadBrad]

Personally, I let it go 2-3 weeks in the fermenter, crash cool it for 24 hours to drop most of the yeast and then transfer to a purged keg. If I want a particularly clear beer I use a keg that I cut the dip tube on for an additional 1-2 weeks clarification in my kegerator (yes, I said cut the dip tube) and then jumper from one keg to another to leave the sediment behind.

I do the same thing. I brew 10 gallon batches, so I have two kegs with shortened dip tubes that I use as bright tanks. Two weeks in primary for ales, four weeks for lagers. Closed transfer to the purged bright tanks. Chill to 32F for a day. Add gelatin and wait a few days then rack to serving kegs using a jumper. Clear, clean tasting beer every time. This also gives me peace of mind knowing that I have very clean beer stored in the keg since I rotate kegs often to keep the variety fresh in my two tap kegerator and partially filled keg may sit for a while in the chest freezer waiting to be put back on tap. It also works great since I often take kegs to parties and I don't have to worry about sediment being stirred up during tansport. All the sediment was left behind in the bright tank.