RobE

Recipes 

This is my first 5 gal batch (weizenbier) and it's day 5 in the primary and fermentation seems to have slowed/stopped. I was thinking about moving it to my 5 gal Carboy to finish. Should I move it to the secondary fermenter and if so, how soon?

Lunchtime

Recipes 

I would just leave it. Most people will tell you that you should only move to a secondary if you're going to be dry-hopping or adding fruit/oak chips. It will be better for you beer to just let it sit in the primary for a while.

AdamPag

Recipes 

Let it ride

ChrisJPassarelli

Recipes 

Yup, even after the original fermentation is done, the yeast keeps cleaning up other byproducts and making everything ship-shape. If you want to do secondary, perhaps rack after 10 days? Apparently after 2 weeks you can start getting some off flavors from the trub, but right now you have the benefit of a big ol' yeast colony hanging out and perfecting your beer. No rush.

lgilmore

Recipes 

A couple weeks in the primary and a couple in the secondary works well. I like the secondary for a couple of reasons. First if I fill the secondary, it opens the primary for a new batch. Also I like a clear beer to bottle and I am much better bottling from a secondary than a primary, but that is just me.

pjj2ba

Recipes 

If fermentation has stopped, then it is fine to go ahead and transfer. The only danger of transferring too early is that then you will get extra yeast settling out. You will get some yeast settling out anyways as it is the yeast in suspension that are doing the active portion of beer maturation. Eventually these too will settle out in your secondary

__________________
On Tap: Pale Ale, CAP, Saison, Kolsch
Kegged and Aging/Lagering: Imperial Alt, CAP, GDR pils
Secondary:
Primary: Kolsch, OKZ (std Amer. lager), CZ pils
Brewing soon: Saison, IPA
Recently kicked : ( Bock, Baltic Porter, Ger. Pils, Lite IPA,
Pilsner Urquell Master Homebrewer (1st NYC 2011, 2nd NYC 2012)
P U crowns winners in its inaugural master HB competition

irunxcjm

Recipes 

This is not true on our scale. Many people, including myself, leave our beers on the trub for a month with no trouble. Pros worry about this when they have huge conical fermenters and the pressure of all that beer on a little space can cause trouble. So with us, a flat bottom and very little volume of beer, this should be a non-issue.

homebrewdad

Recipes 

This. There are tons of posts here from homebrew vets who use 3-4 weeks as a rule of thumb for any beer, and who leave "big" bears on the cake for up to several months.

5 days? Leave it.

__________________
Homebrew Dad - blogging about making my own beer and raising a lot of kids.
Check out the priming sugar calculator and the beer calorie calculator.

Fermenting: Yorkshire square brown ale
Bottled: Belgian golden strong ale, Yorkshire square brown ale, Leffe Blonde clone, imperial nut brown ale

Revvy

Recipes 

That old idea of off flavors from the yeast is 30 years outdated, and had to do with yeast health and freshness, which modern yeast more than surpasses in both.

Even John Palmer has advocated not rushing the beer off the yeast for that very reason.


Now the thing to realize is that in the case of a wheat beer, if it's meant to be cloudy, with lots of yeast in suspension, then you don't want to go too long, nor do you want to rack to a secondary...the purpose of extended primary/secondary has a lot to do with beer clearing....but in a low flocculating, intentionally hazy beer, you don't want that.

So maybe an additional week after hydromter proved completion of fermentation then it's off to bottle or keg.

__________________
Like my snazzy new avatar? Get Sons of Zymurgy swag, here, and brew with the best.

Revvy's one of the cool reverends. He has a Harley and a t-shirt that says on the back "If you can read this, the bitch was Raptured. - Madman

I gotta tell ya, just between us girls, that Revvy is HOT. Very tall, gorgeous grey hair and a terrific smile. He's very good looking in person, with a charismatic personality... he drives like a ****ing maniac! - YooperBrew

rideincircles

Recipes 

I am brewing a German altbier as my first time brewing and it is now 5 days in, I don't plan on going to secondary although I did get a ton of trub in the carboy since I dumped my 2.5 gallons of water into the brewpot while it was transferring. Right now I am trying to decide if I should ferment 2 or 3 weeks. As of yesterday, I counted a bubble from the airlock every 20 seconds or so. Trying to avoid starting a new post.