I'm fermenting my third batch now and just racked to secondary yesterday. On the first two brews, I had some yeast settle to the bottom of the secondary carboy, but never this much. This is a significantly bigger beer than the first two, and I had a big yeast cake in primary (couple of inches, at least). I know I picked up a little of that at the end of racking, but left the great majority of it behind - yet within a few hours of racking, I had a big yeast cake in the secondary - it's now about an inch and a half thick - I assume it's almost all yeast because it's a nice clean white color.
This beer is a Porter - expected O.G. was 1.061, I measured 1.072 (maybe I didn't have the top-off water mixed in well enough?). I had it in primary for 26 days. Expected F.G. is 1.017 (has 8 oz. Malto Dextrin) - I measured the F.G. a week ago at 1.022; yesterday it was 1.021. I had originally planned to skip the secondary, but didn't due to the amount of trub and what appeared to be a fine "dust" of yeast clinging to the side walls of the 6 gallon B.B primary fermenter. I'm glad I went to secondary or I would have ended up with all that yeast in my bottling bucket. There was little sediment in my bottling bucket on my first two batches.
Anyway, what I want to know is:
1. is it normal to have that much yeast settle out right after racking to secondary?
2. if it is, then why do so many people here skip the secondary - seems like they would end up with a huge amount of sediment in their bottles/kegs?
This beer is a Porter - expected O.G. was 1.061, I measured 1.072 (maybe I didn't have the top-off water mixed in well enough?). I had it in primary for 26 days. Expected F.G. is 1.017 (has 8 oz. Malto Dextrin) - I measured the F.G. a week ago at 1.022; yesterday it was 1.021. I had originally planned to skip the secondary, but didn't due to the amount of trub and what appeared to be a fine "dust" of yeast clinging to the side walls of the 6 gallon B.B primary fermenter. I'm glad I went to secondary or I would have ended up with all that yeast in my bottling bucket. There was little sediment in my bottling bucket on my first two batches.
Anyway, what I want to know is:
1. is it normal to have that much yeast settle out right after racking to secondary?
2. if it is, then why do so many people here skip the secondary - seems like they would end up with a huge amount of sediment in their bottles/kegs?