When to go to secondary

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Cornfed

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Greetings. My Belgian Blonde, which looks more like a Belgian Brunette, has been in the primary fermenter for a week and a day now. It bubbled like mad for several days, and is now down to maybe once every 20 seconds. I want to move this to a secondary fermenter at some point since there's tons of gunk in there from the primary fermentation.

Should I wait until it completely stops bubbling? Or rack away?

I didn't take a hydrometer reading (I know, I should have) since I wanted one less thing to do on brew day.

Thanks for any suggestions. I also want to take a small taste when racking to see what this brunette is like!
 
the rule of thumb with most homebrewers here is the 1, 2, 3 method.

1 week in the primary
2 weeks in the secondary
and 3 weeks in the bottle.

my first brew was still bubbling @ 1 bubble every 20 seconds when i racked to the secondary. got another .6% ABV while in the secondary.

do you know what your FG is supposed to be? you could always sanitize you hydrometer and check the gravity before racking.

if it was me i would rack it to get it off the trub. the yeast in the beer will still work for you.

and of course you should taste it when racking...
 
Well.... the simple answer is to rack when it's done. When it's done is sometimes a matter of opinion. Heres the thing... the airlock is still going right... ? At least at a rate that you can sit there and see. So it's still fermenting. There's your answer:) The secondary is for aging and clearing, not generally to ferment in.
 
The longer you let it sit in the primary the tighter the trub will pack and the less you will lose racking it to the clearing tank. Wait until it's down to once a minute.
 
I'm a newbie compared to these guys, but I like getting it off the trub asap ... partly this is because I use a plastic primary and cheap dehydrated yeast: the yeast explodes very quickly, and plastic tubs are less airtight and more likely to impart or take of flavors and smells than are glass containers. Sometimes this is within 2 days of starting.

Just 2c

keegan
 
2 days....? As in 48 hours? Lag time is sometimes that long let alone a complete fermentation. I dont know.... IMHO that is not a lot of time, but hey... it's working for you.
 
I agree with Beer Snob -- just wait a bit more. I've always waited until there's no noticable action in the airlock before racking to secondary.

I started out with the 1-2-3 method, but lately I'm closer to 2-3-4. I have to say, this is one hobby where procrastination sometimes really pays off.
 
Jetsers said:
1 - 1 - 2 was what I started, now its more 2 weeks - 3 weeks - 1 day...

So true, with my first batch I was so excited/impatient that I chilled a beer right after I bottled it and drank it a few hours later knowing full well that it'd be flat....lol. But I drank it anyway.


nosnhojr said:
I have to say, this is one hobby where procrastination sometimes really pays off.

Truer words were never spoken.
 
WHen ever you are in doubt about fermentation and whether you should rack, DO NOTHING!!

Don't rack until you are sure it is ready. Bad things can happen by racking too early. Nothing but good can occur by waiting a few extra days to rack.

There are some folks that don't rack to secondary at all, they just allow the beer to sit on the yeast a little extra time to clean up and then rack to keg or bottle. I've let my brews sit in the primary for a month with no issues.

Sean
 
well everyone seems to disagree with me.

i have only brewed 5 batches, so I would listen to them. :mug:

all i know is when this happened to me, i racked after 1 week and all was good...

every batch i have made since the first seemed to finish up in 3 days or less.
 
When I use dehydrated yeast in a bit of a starter, aerated wort, and a plastic tub with lots of airspace (I don't even have an airlock on mine.. just a loose lid) lag time is about 45 minutes. Most fermentation is done in 2 days, and after racking the secondary will trickle bubbles very slowly for the remaining time. This gets it out of the less sealed, plastic primary and off of the largest amount of trub. I can then put it out of sight for a month if I want before kegging straight from the secondary.

Like I said, I would probably do it differently if I used expensive liquid yeast and a better primary, but this has worked very well for me.

You are probably imagining times based on liquid yeast.

To each thier own though, and I agree that you won't likely do harm leaving it in the primary for extra time.

Keegan
 
I've been listening to many podcasts from basicbrewingradio.com (I think that's the url...or basicbrewing.com and choosing radio?), and am in the middle of one with I think the founder of WYeast. I just listened to a part where he advocates simply making sure you complete fermentation in your primary then bottling straight from there. The argument is that you often do more harm than good to your beer by transferring it (due to oxidation, bad sanitation, etc).

He also talks about making sure you have a quick and complete fermentation, and that this is the way you avoid some of the off flavors associated with sitting on the spent yeast etc from the primary, so he says you want to get into the bottles 10 days to 2 weeks after hitting the primary.

He also talks of bottling right from the primary adding priming sugar directly to the bottles (using those prime tab things or even individually measuring the sugar) since he says he thinks it's easier to get a more even mixture than using a bottling bucket or the like (since he says the sugar tends to mostly land in the bottom of the bucket when mixing it that way).

Lots of interesting stuff for me to consider! Given all this advice and the podcast, and my normal schedule, I'm still thinking I'll transfer to secondary tomorrow or Friday just because I won't have time to bottle most likely until next weekend and since my primary has lots of stuff at the bottom now. Will need to decide on the bottling strategy before then.

As always, thanks for all the help!
 
That's really interesting!

Thanks for the link.

I have to say ... well... I wouldn't usually argue with someone as expert as the wyeast guy... but has he ever had to do that himself? My first batch of beer I followed the directions to measure sugar to each bottle individually, and let me tell you that was a new kind of TEDIOUS! I suppose the tabs might do better... it sure doesn't give you the flexibility to use different sized bottles, or to alter the amount of carbonation to suit the style of beer.

Other thoughts?
 
mrkeeg said:
I suppose the tabs might do better... it sure doesn't give you the flexibility to use different sized bottles, or to alter the amount of carbonation to suit the style of beer.
QUOTE]

I could not imagine using tabs for those reasons. Plus, all you need to do is STIR well before bottling (gently as to not oxidize), then do it again after the halfway point. After starting to stir, my bottling cabonation has been MUCH more consistent.

Cheers.

BrewStef
 
If I were to follow the regular priming sugar and "bottling bucket" idea, what should I do? First, I have no bottling bucket, but was thinking of trying to bottle right from a carboy or pot using an autosiphon and bottling wand (I posted about this a while back). The advice I was given was to transfer to an empty carboy or even my brew pot. Should I prepare the priming sugar, put that into my brew pot, then siphon the beer onto it? And then stir? And how much stirring, so that I don't aerate too much?
 
Cornfed said:
I've been listening to many podcasts from basicbrewingradio.com (I think that's the url...or basicbrewing.com and choosing radio?), and am in the middle of one with I think the founder of WYeast. I just listened to a part where he advocates simply making sure you complete fermentation in your primary then bottling straight from there. The argument is that you often do more harm than good to your beer by transferring it (due to oxidation, bad sanitation, etc).

He also talks about making sure you have a quick and complete fermentation, and that this is the way you avoid some of the off flavors associated with sitting on the spent yeast etc from the primary, so he says you want to get into the bottles 10 days to 2 weeks after hitting the primary.

He also talks of bottling right from the primary adding priming sugar directly to the bottles (using those prime tab things or even individually measuring the sugar) since he says he thinks it's easier to get a more even mixture than using a bottling bucket or the like (since he says the sugar tends to mostly land in the bottom of the bucket when mixing it that way).

Lots of interesting stuff for me to consider! Given all this advice and the podcast, and my normal schedule, I'm still thinking I'll transfer to secondary tomorrow or Friday just because I won't have time to bottle most likely until next weekend and since my primary has lots of stuff at the bottom now. Will need to decide on the bottling strategy before then.

As always, thanks for all the help!



Stop listening to that crap before it messes you up. I think that guy had a few too many beers. Some beers will not ferment in 10-14 days. And if you cannot be sanitary, you do not need to be brewing in the first place.

If you are worried about priming sugar stettling, just make sure the specific gravity of the Priming "Wort" is the same as the final gravity of your brew. If the gravities are the same neither will float or sink and they will mix just fine.

1-2-3 works perfectly well. 1-1-2 works perfectly well most of the time. But slight fermentation always happens in the secondary. The rule of thumb is not to bottle until the specific gravity is constant for 3 days. Every now and then you get that batch that takes 3 or 4 weeks to ferment. That is just life.

There are no absolutes in fermentation.
 
Personaly i'd go for a constant sg over 2 days, other wise thats the first sensible piece of advice so far.
 
Cornfed before you cling to strongly to the advice you head, I am hoping that you have some good books too.... Palmer's, How to brew.... The Joy of homebrewing. I'm not saying that what you heard was cr*p or anything.... sounds like a bit of it was out of the mainstream thought though. Those tabs, incidently are a PINA in my opinion. The last thing you want to do is add another painfull step to bottling.
 
Yes, I've read two Papazian books (his first plus the Homebrewer's Companion) plus I have a couple recipe books (Homebrewer's Gold by Papazian and this odd assortment of submitted recipe book (has about 200 recipes)). I've also paged through Secrets of the Master Brewers, which has some specific tips from famous brewers and some recipes (that's the one which got me really wanting to do full boils for extract beers....the "master brewer" in question started by saying many times folks attribute too much success to all grain after their first batch since they're also usually making so many other improvements with their first all grain batch (like full boils, wort chillers, etc)).

Regarding the podcasts, they're terrific, though I'm thinking perhaps a little simplistic for the advanced crowd. What's great about them is that they present information in a really simple and fair manner. The fermentation stuff was definitely presented as "a controversial topic among homebrewers" and it was given as something which many homebrewers would disagree with. The Speed Brewing one was also quite fascinating, and the sanitization one was great.

I'm just trying to collect as much information as possible as I brew. What else is there to do during the time between brew day and when my beer's complete :) Oh yeah, hoping to start another batch in a week or so, so that should quiet me down a bit :)
 
You've got some real good resources there. You can't tell me you have not seen some discrepencies between the podcasts and Papazian though.
 
Beer Snob said:
You've got some real good resources there. You can't tell me you have not seen some discrepencies between the podcasts and Papazian though.

Oh absolutely. I've been thinking of it as some folks challenging conventional wisdom. Also, I should have noted I read those books probably 7/8 years ago. I've been skimming them a lot the last month plus reading some on the Net plus talking with fine folks such as yourself. It's been great fun. Sure, not as fun as drinking this stuff will be, but fun, nonetheless.
 
I think you have to take what they say with a grain of salt. Kind of like those home improvement shows when they say, "Its easy" They cater to show sponsors. Quick fermentation sounds like big brewing company jibber-jabber. Time is money and adding more ingredients is wastefull and all that garbage. I think the risk of having your brew sitting on spent yeast depends on the what yeast you are using and the temp. Some are more tolerant than others.

Personally if you make watery beer with no flavor (BMC) you might have to worry about yeast flavoring the so called beer. :D

I would follow the books you have. They are awesome sources. By the way Charlie likes single stage fermenting. I like it too. I think 2 stage is good for specific things like real clear lighter body beers, less yeast in the bottle, adding special flavors, dry hopping, and prolonging bottling for whatever reason; like having no bottles or a traveling vacation.

Its true you increase the risk of ruining the beer in the event you make a mistake using a 2-stage. If you are carefull the risk is very low if you sanitize.
 
Oh, by the way, Charlie likes the carboy as a primary so he can use a blow-off to expel the fusel resins.

Less risk of hangovers :cross:
 
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