Yeast all worn out..

I brewed last monday.. It was a great time.. Pitched the yeast.. The first day it was smokin.. I mean alot of activity in the primary.. About wenesday she started slowing down the bubbles were like 1 every 2-3 seconds.. On thursday she wasnt bubbling, but every 10 seconds.. I thought about repitching yeast, but I decided not to. Now I have no bubbles coming.. I thought about going ahead and a transferring it to my secondary after only 5 days.. My question is should I go ahead a transfer or wait until the whole 7 days? I am re-reading some books and cannot find my answer. I used Fermentis yeast about 11.5g of it.. Just curious if I could go ahead and transfer.,, Thanks guys..

All sounds good... you can transfer to your secondary now if you like. It will continue to frerment SLOWLY and/or clear in the secondary. Many people do not use secondaries and simply leave thier brews in the primary for an extra week or two. You can also accelerate clearing by cold crashing beer in the carboy to about 35F for several days.

sweet... thanks.. I am going to transfer in the secondary tonight then.. I am ready to see it start to clear a bit.. The color does look good on it.. I am getting pumped.. I am going to have to brew next week to keep me calm though through my first batch.. haha..

yeast doen't really get worn out. The beer gets worn out first. Just like your car, the yeast stops when it runs out of fuel.

That is not all there is to it though. Now that the conversion to alcohol is complete the yeast will clean up after itself and remove some byproducts of the conversion process. Leave it be for at least 7 days, better yet, make it 10 or 14 days (I go 21 days) in primary and your beer will be all the better for it. You could go straight to bottle after 21 days if you wanted to. Generally I only secondary after 28 days or if I need to free up a primary for a new batch.

I primary for 10-14 days (or more for bigger beers) just to be sure the yeast have a chance to clean up any byproducts that may have been produced during fermentation.

What you described sounds like a normal fermentation to me.

Saccharomyces said:

I primary for 10-14 days (or more for bigger beers) just to be sure the yeast have a chance to clean up any byproducts that may have been produced during fermentation.

What you described sounds like a normal fermentation to me.

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gotcha.. maybe I should wait the full 7 then

Kplum said:

gotcha.. maybe I should wait the full 7 then

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"the full 7"

where is this coming from? nobody said 7....lol

anxious?

An advantage to going to secondary early - if you use a secondary is that the yeast will still be somewhat active and use up the oxygen that will invariably be introduced during the transfer (limiting later oxidative damage to the beer).

There is plenty of viable yeast in suspension "doing work" in the brew most of the yeast that has dropped down to the bottom is not in great shape and not long for this world - and indeed yeast do get worn out and die if left long enough (say 2-16 weeks depending on conditions)

just my 2 cents.

Kplum said:

I brewed last monday.. It was a great time.. Pitched the yeast.. The first day it was smokin.. I mean alot of activity in the primary.. About wenesday she started slowing down the bubbles were like 1 every 2-3 seconds.. On thursday she wasnt bubbling, but every 10 seconds.. I thought about repitching yeast,

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I would think it is more likely that the temps were on the warm side and the bulk of fermentation finished faster than you thought it would.

I'd likely leave in primary for 14 days, take the hydro samples to verify FG, and bottle. The less interference the better.