rcd

Recipes 

I brewed a Fat Tire clone approximately 5-6 days ago. Yesterday, fermentation had slowed to under 5 bubbles/minute. Today I racked to a secondary fermenter. When I opened the primary, there was the ring of krausen around the sides like I usually see, but there was also foam on the top. I racked anyway... Did I rack too early? Will it be ruined now?

For future reference, what's the rule on this... In palmer's book he says it's best to rack when bubbling is under 5 bubbles per minute (vs. necessarily waiting a week).

dougjones31

Recipes 

As a general rule.....let it stay in the primary until the krausen falls and there are very little bubbles left on top of the wort. There is a layer of yeast under the krause and you want it to sink to the bottom before you rack to the secondary.

Most of the time I just primary for 1 full week. Extra primary time will not hurt a thing.

Racking early like you did can cause the fermentation to hang and take a long time to finish.

david_42

Recipes 

I keg from the fermentor, so I go by less than 4 bubbles per minute AND a minimum of a week AND the gravity is constant for 3 days.

But, racking earlier won't ruin the batch. Nor will it make the brew ready to drink any earlier.

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brewie

Recipes 

You probably won't get every last bit of conversion you could have, but no worries. When I first started (and didn't take gravities too often) I used the 1-2-3 method. You know - 1 week primary, 2 weeks secondary, 3 or more in the bottle. It seemed to work pretty well until I understood a little more on what was happening. Through trial and error I've learned to just rely on stabilized gravities (and I still kinda go by the 1-2-3 anyway) instead of visible activity. Hope this helps.

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In Primary:
In Secondary:
Bottled: Double IPA OG: 1.065 FG: 1.010
On Tap: Waiting for CO2