Racking to tertiary

So here's my issue. Both a Pale Ale and an Amber Ale were brewed/put into primary on June 30th. Both were put into secondary on July 7th---krausen had since fallen and significantly lower airlock activity.

PA had 1# steeped grains and 6# of LME...SG unknown
Amb. Ale had 9# LME...SG unknown

Fermentation Temp: 65-66deg and not on a concrete floor.

Now, on day 17 of being in the secondary, both are still showing signs of fermenting. Some airlock activity (bubble every couple minutes) and I can see very fine bubbles rising as well as particles of yeast here and there both rising and falling in both carboys.

I have come to the conclusion that the temp. is a wee bit low for a faster ferment and the ABV might be stunting those yeasties to "be the best" they can be. Getting the temp up a few degrees will be tough.
The PA used 1056 w/ optimum ferm. temp of 68deg.
The AA used 3463 (Forbidden Fruit) w/ an optimum ferm. temp of 68 as well.

Both smell wonderful and taking a Hydro reading is not something I really want to do at this point...it's obvious there is still some fermentables in there.

So I wonder, should I rack both of these to a tertiary carboy to stimulate the yeast and get the beer off the yeast-cake OR just RDWHAHB and wait it out??

id let it sit until the weekend and bottle/keg it...

The Amber is probably going to take longer to ferment out due to the 9# of LME.

You can rack them but I've found once in the secondary for a couple weeks if they still bubble, take a racking cane and gently stir up the top of the yeast cake (don't actually touch the cake let the stir action agitate it) be careful not to create a big whirlpool as that will put air in... Give it another couple days and if the bubbles don't increase, and the stir settles back out it is probably done and just out gassing. The best sign it's ready to bottle is no activity at all for a day+ Bubbles every couple minutes is usually just out gassing of the beer

Explain gasing out of the beer?

I'm guessing that all the fermenting and the yeast putting out massive amounts of CO2 is the equivelent dissolving X amount of CO2 into the beer and once fermentation slows the beer is trying to make itself flat? Is it possible this could be occuring for 2+ weeks?

Explain gasing out of the beer?

Click to expand...

Short version, Outgassing is the process of the C02 produced by the fermentation coming out of solution (the beer going flat) When the yeasties are done making new C02 what they made will "leak" out

Fermentation creates C02, The churning yeasties infuse the beer with C02 (see carbonation/bottle conditioning). In the Primary and secondary just like in the bottles the beer carbonates, the difference is, in the bottle, the cap forces the carbonation to stay in solution. In the secondary all the gas is leaking out of the beer, and since it has an escape (the air lock) the beer will leak C02 until the concentration matches the outside air pressure. Resulting in near Flat beer (since there is a blanket of C02 in the carboy it won't go completely flat but pretty close).....

An update to this post:

I bottled the pale ale tonight. I estimate the SG to be 1.047 based on ProMash. The FG was 1.006. The taste? A *little* grassy but I suspect this is due to a long-ish secondary (18days) w/ a dry-hop of pellets directly into the secondary. I believe it will mellow out significantly or disappear.

Based on the grav. reading I suspect that the bubbles for the past few weeks have been the out-gasing / outgasing described above and NOT fermentation.

Next time I am going to use the hop tea method for dry hopping.

Tommorow or this weekend will be bottle-time for the amber-ale.