Need some advice

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RGillette10

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So this is a dumb noobie mistake. I'm in the process of making Yooper's Dog Fish Head IPA clone. This morning was the day to rack to the secondary. I took a hydrometer reading and it was at 1.013. Good enough for me, and this morning was really the only time I was going to have in the next few days to do the transfer. I sanitized a bucket and all my materials, added the hops for dry hopping, and racked to the secondary with sanitized lid, stopper and airlock. Now, I'm reading the buckets are not good for secondary fermentations . I know I should have read that sooner, but I didn't. Should I:

1. Proceed as planned and hope for the best.
2. Get a glass carboy and transfer
3. Prime and Bottle
4. Take some other action

Thanks for your help.
 
Oh, ok. I was worried because Palmer said:

It is important to minimize the amount of headspace in the secondary fermentor to minimize the exposure to oxygen until the headspace can be purged by the still-fermenting beer. For this reason, plastic buckets do not make good secondary fermentors unless the beer is transferred just as the primary phase is starting to slow and is still bubbling steadily.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter8-4.html
 
buckets are no good as an extended secondary fermenter because they tend to let oxygen in which will ruin your beer over time. That said a week or two and you should be fine.
 
I used my bucket for a 4 week fermentation of a Hefe and it turned out great!
 
A properly sealed plastic FV doesn't leach o2 that quickly. Besides there is dissolved co2 from fermentation in the beer,& racking to secondary brings that out. It leads some to think it's fermenting again. But it's just off gassing. So that can help fill the head space for a week or two.
 
I actually just leave the brew in the primary for 2 weeks (or untill fermentation has stopped) and throw hops in for a week. I don't even bother racking to secondary. Just the way I do it though...so far good results.
 

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