Long fermentation

So, I'm currently working on an IPA that's been fermenting for 9 days now. I'm worried about how long the fermentation is taking. I moved it into the secondary fermenter two days ago, and it's still bubbling pretty good. Until this beer, I've never seen fermentation go on this long. Is something wrong, or did I finally do something right? I'm pretty new to this. This is my third all grain batch. It's also the biggest I've done

The gravity is at around 1.020 and the final for my recipe is 1.010, which I'm assuming is good news. I'm using White labs Irish Ale. any thoughts here?

My thoughts are...why Irish Ale yeast with an IPA?

And... 9 days is nothing. Wait until you do a lager and it takes 3+weeks. Also...why did you move it to secondary if it wasn't done with primary? You don't have far to go if your gravity is at 1.020. Give it another week or so and bottle or keg.

Thanks for your thoughts. I thought it'd be an interesting combo to do the Irish with an IPA. I liked the flavor I got out of it with the Stout recently did, so I decided to see what it would do to an IPA. And I probably did move it too soon. I've been kind of under the impression that you should move to secondary after a week or so. Don't know if that bit of information is off or not.

You should move to secondary (if at all) once the bubbling/fermentation starts to taper off. For beers under about 1.060 OG you don't really need to move it to a secondary, you can just let it finish it's fermentation and conditioning for 2 to 3 weeks in the primary and then bottle or keg.

thbeard1 said:

Thanks for your thoughts. I thought it'd be an interesting combo to do the Irish with an IPA. I liked the flavor I got out of it with the Stout recently did, so I decided to see what it would do to an IPA. And I probably did move it too soon. I've been kind of under the impression that you should move to secondary after a week or so. Don't know if that bit of information is off or not.

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I never move out of primary until at least 1 week after fermentation has finished, preferably 2.

And I never bother secondarying unless I'm going to be aging the beer on fruit or oak or something like that, or it's a really long-aging beer. But even if I am going to secondary, I definitely wait at least a week after fermentation's done to give the yeast a chance to clean up.

SumnerH said:

I never move out of primary until at least 1 week after fermentation has finished, preferably 2.

And I never bother secondarying unless I'm going to be aging the beer on fruit or oak or something like that, or it's a really long-aging beer. But even if I am going to secondary, I definitely wait at least a week after fermentation's done to give the yeast a chance to clean up.

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+1. Exactly how it should be done.

I'll add the reason to leave it alone in primary for 2-4 weeks is to allow the yeast to clean up after themselves. During fermentation the yeast are not only putting off CO2 & alcohol as they eat the sugars but they're also putting off byproducts such as diacetyl. The extra time on the yeast allows them to clean up after themselves and give you a much cleaner bier.

As for your choice of Irish Ale yeast for an IPA, I like the experimentation. Probably works well. I had a Sam Adams Irish Red this AM just before 8 along with a couple homegrown eggs & biscuits with homemade blueberry jam. The eggs and SA Irish Red were amazing together, the eggs really brought out the 'irish' character in that bier.

Schlante,
Phillip