wstcstwil

Recipes 

So I just racked to secondary a few hours ago. This was my first home brew so I was kinda nervous about it. I had a pretty good fermentation going for about two-three days. Today (7th day in primary) I decide it was time to rack to secondary, more because I was antsy than anything.

My beer has a nice brown color but the smell wasn't too appealing. Also when I opened it up there was a few thick clumps of coagulated yeast on top but not much else. The yeast cake on the bottom was quite thick though so I am wondering if it had just sunk to the bottom.

Anyway, I am probably being a nutso noob but any reassurances would be helpful. I didn't take any specific gravity but plan on letting it sit in secondary about two weeks now.

Marko73

Recipes 

That sounds like it is going fine. Everything settled to the bottom which is good. That is exactly what you want. I wouldn't worry too much about the smell. . . there are some definite different smelling aromas from fermentation.

Many people here don't use a secondary and leave it in the primary for 3 weeks or so. If you are going to use a secondary, I would take gravity readings for 2 or 3 days in a row to make sure fermentation is complete and then rack to a secondary. Some people suggest a 1-2-3 method (1 week primary, 2 week secondary, 3 week bottles) but I would get in the habit of using your hydrometer. Some bigger beers take longer than a week

But it sounds like everything is going well! Let us know how it turns out!

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