re: Homebrewing: In-Process Thread

The whole use of the term secondary fermentation as it relates to a secondary fermenter has always been strange to me. Secondary fermentation as I've always understood it involved the conditioning of the beer on the yeast cake. To me the extra time on the yeast is critical to a complete product. How the hell is it a secondary fermenter if it involves taking the beer off the yeast which effectively stops secondary fermentation?

So even if you do plan on using a secondary fermenter for dry hopping or brightening or whatever I still encourage you to leave the beer in primary until you're confident the fermentation/conditioning is done.