Agdarnell

Recipes 

Ok so I know alot of people think that the secondary is uneccesary but I am doing a dry hop on my current brew and the instructions with the kit say one week primary then move to secondary and drop in the hops but the one week will be up on saturday and I should be moving it to the secondary but as of now I am seeing a lot of activity in the airlock and am wondering if I should wait untill the activity dies down a bit before dry hoping and moving to secondary! this is only my 3rd batch and I am obviously still learning! help!

rossi46

Recipes 

Primary for two to three weeks, check your gravity, if its done move to secondary and dry hop.

JLem

Recipes 

IF you are going to rack to secondary, wait until the fermentation is complete and the yeast have had time to clean up a little. I probably wouldn't move a beer in less than 2 weeks, maybe 10 days, but certainly not if there was still active fermentation.

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Brewing blog at Brew by Brew

DJP00829

Recipes 

Definitely wait until it's done fermenting to transfer to the secondary. The secondary "fermenter" is a misnomer, as it's mostly used for clarifying/adding additional flavors instead of actually fermenting the beer.

And while airlock activity means its most likely still going, the only way to know when it's done fermenting is to take gravity readings and either compare it to your expected FG or take a few samples over days and wait for there to be no more change.

h22lude

Recipes 

You don't NEED to rack to secondary when dry hopping. You definitely can if you want to but there really isn't a need. I just brewed a DFH 60 minute clone (Yooper's recipe). I let it sit in primary for 10 days and then I dry hopped right in primary for another 10 days.

If you are going to use a secondary, definitely make sure the fermentation is complete before racking.

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Primary: Da Yooper's House Ale

Kegged: Oatmeal Stout

Bottled: Nothing

On my list to brew: I have no clue!!