High Gravity Fermentation

Hello all,
I've got a batch of belgian ale in my primare fermenter. The O.G. is about 1.08ish. In the beginning of the firmentaion it was vigorous. I used a yeast starter and it just took off. Now, it's 9 days later and the bubbling has dropped to about 6 bubbles from the airlock per minute. My question is, how much longer should I let it sit in my primary?

Cheers,
Chris

I usually rack once the krausen has fallen, and I have had good results. There will still be activity in secondary, but it will stop and clear in a couple weeks.

That's one buble every ten seconds--personally I'd let it ferment out more and see how it's doing at the end of two weeks. I am always afraid racking while it is still somewhat actively fermenting prematurely ends the process--but that's me. I like to have less than one bubble per minute...

I've got to agree with jeff here...6 BPM is way too active to rack it yet. I'd wait until it's down to 1 bubble every two minutes myself.

And less than one per two minutes is actually what my local homebrew shop (and I think Papazian) always recommended. But, I have a brown ale in the primary that has gone from one bubble every 45, 60, 75, and now 90 seconds over the last four days (now on the 11th day in primary) that I would not be afraid to rack--most of the active signs of fermentation are done other than the airlock. More out of time contraints than anything i typically give my beers two full weeks in the primary...

Oddly enough, it is usually time constraints which force me to rack early, since I don't know when I may be gone for 1-7 weeks. So I try to get everything into secondary asap to get it out of the plastic bucket (my brewing setup doesn't really support blow-off hoses yet.)

I just entered a Belgian blonde in the AHA club only comp (one brew per club) that I let sit in the primary for 22 days, then racked and let sit in the secondary for another month. The beer came out superb, good enough to beet out 4 other entries for the comp.

Just don't let it sit in the primary for more than 24 days.

This is good info. Thanks everyone. The last thing I want to do is rack prematurely. I'll check the activity this Saturday. That will have been 12 days in the primary. I'll do it when the bubbles are down to less than 1 per minute. right now it's at 4-5.