I have heard with extract brewing I dont really need a secondary fermeter.
tell me what you thing.

Russell, a good many of us, myself included, almost never secondary. I would say it depends more on the style of beer and the desired clarity of your finished product.

No you don't have to use the secondary. I do use them as bulk storage to let my beer age or when I want to free up my primary for the next batch and don't have an empty keg.

Secondary??? We don't need no stinkin' secondary.

With my all-grain brews, I get a good bit of unwanted material going into my primary; break material, hop debris, etc, that I am only able to partially exclude. I secondary to get the beer off of all of that after it settles for a couple of weeks.

I agree with the OP in that I have not noticed any problems with just a primary on my extract brews. I just haven't felt secure enough to do that with any of my all-grain batches yet.

Using a secondary fermenter doesn't have anything to do with extract vs. all grain brewing. If you use irish moss or another fining agent you can clear your beer pretty well without a secondary, or let it age for a long time in primary. (Many warn against autolysis or the dying of yeast cells, but I think the risks of that happening are overstated) I'd say do a secondary if you want to clear your beer or if you want to do extended aging. I only use a secondary fermenter for really big beers that need months to mellow out. (Also sours)

bgjohnston:

If you are wanting to clear trub, hot break, hop debris and the like, cold crash it to serving temperature for a day or two before racking to the keg, or bottling bucket. This will make most of it fall out of suspension. If you are kegging, cold crash, rack to keg, force carb abd enjoy. If bottling you may need to add a little yeast to the bottling bucket though.

I only secondary when I'm adding something like coffee, vanilla, etc...