Secondary too soon? Or ok?

Hello All!

7 days ago I brewed my first batch. Today I siphoned into my secondary. The directions for this batch (Brewer's Best IPA) recommended moving to the secondary just after 4-6 days, or when fermentation slowed, and allow fermentation to finish in the secondary for 2 additional weeks.

Question: Did I move it to the secondary too soon? Some other readings say that I should not have moved it to secondary until fermentation is done.

Facts about the brew:

OG: 1.070
SG: 1.024 (this is the reading before I moved it to the secondary)

Both the OG and SG are just over what is expected from the directions.


Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


Cheers!

Sounds perfect. Don't worry about when you move it. The active yeast will travel with the beer.

It will probably be fine, but there is no reason to secondary after 7 days or 60 days. Some like to secondary before dry hopping. You will get no negative affects from leaving it in the primary for a few weeks. Racking to secondary only increases your chances of infection or oxidation.

Burtlake1985 said:

The directions for this batch (Brewer's Best IPA) recommended moving to the secondary just after 4-6 days, or when fermentation slowed, and allow fermentation to finish in the secondary for 2 additional weeks.

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Hopefully it will finish out with the yeast that's in suspension. It may possibly take a little more time.

Most folks here (me included) leave the beer in the primary until it hits a stable hydrometer reading for FG plus anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. Then it goes to bottling/kegging w/o a trip to the secondary. The only times I see a real (vs. a perceived) need to secondary a beer is either for long-term bulk aging, if you're going to add fruit or if you're going to dry hop and want to harvest cleaner yeast.

Kit instructions range from the helpful to the just plain wrong (usually when it comes to using a secondary for everything and what are acceptable pitch/fermentation temps). I suspect that some of them haven't been updated for quite a few years.

welcome to HBT!

+1 to everything BigFloyd said. leave in primary until stable, regardless of how many days is takes (yeast don't have calendars). secondary, for the most part, isn't required.

Burtlake1985 said:

Facts about the brew:

OG: 1.070
SG: 1.024 (this is the reading before I moved it to the secondary)

Both the OG and SG are just over what is expected from the directions.

Click to expand...

1.070 --> 1.024 = 5.99% abv, 66% attenuation. that's kinda low for attenuation (depending on the recipe, yeast used, etc). what did your recipe call for as a SG? hopefully you brought across enough yeast so finish up in secondary and drive that down a few more points. again, without knowing your recipe, i'd want my beer to finish under 1.020.

I don't have the directions with me, but I believe the FG was to be 1.014 and 1.017. If I need it to drop a few more points...could I just add fresh yeast?

The yeast used was dry, I don't know the type but I can check when I'm home.

Thanks for everyone's input

so you still have a ways to go, if you want to hit the recipe's max FG of 1.017 (not that you can bank on that number - depending on your process, you might not be able to hit that number, or you could end up going below 1.014. it's more of a recommended range).

1.017 gets you to 6.94% abv and 76% attenuation, which seem like much better numbers to me.

you can add more yeast, but you need to get it active first. make a starter with it and pitch it at high krausen (at its more active). yes, even with dry yeast which generally doesn't need a starter. you need to get the yeast into sugar-eating more, and build up it's alcohol tolerance. if you just pitch yeast now, chances are you'll shock it and it will remain dormant. but i would first wait a week after you've warmed it up and take another reading. maybe you have enough cells left in there to finish the job.

Sounds good! I'll give it some time and take a reading next week.

once the beer has warmed up (2-3 days), give the fermenter a *very gentle* swirl to re-suspend the yeast that has fallen to the bottom. and if after a week or a week and a half, you're still at 1.024 then it's time to start thinking about making a starter.

So after letting my secondary sit a while longer (3weeks, with no extra yeast added) with the higher 1.024 SG, I took a sample yesterday and it dropped a few points (1.018 -1.019)!!

Question: Think I'm good for bottling after letting it sit this long? or should I take a few more readings?

All advice is appreciated

You are probably there. I would check it again this weekend. If it hasn't moved, bottle at will.

If you have the ability to crash cool it at 33-35 degrees for a couple of days, (after confirming it's finished), that can help drop excess yeasts and proteins out of suspension to improve clarity. If not, no big deal. It will still be great.

Congratulations. Great job.