i think i used the wrong fermenter?

this is my first brew a red ale that we made sunday night. i have a two stage fermenter. after the boil cooled i poured the wort into the plastic fermenter. i think i was supposed to use the glass carboy first. is it to late to pour the wort into the glass carboy? not sure what to do next.

No, keep it in the plastic fermenter. It will be fine.

Most beers do not need a secondary fermenter anyway.

If your plastic fermenter is a plastic bucket ("ale pale" or similar) and if there is several inches clear space from the top of the beer to the top of the bucket. . .then you've used the correct "primary fermenter." Which has more volume - your plastic or glass carboy? (Use the bigger one for primary.)

edit: Ok, weirdboy beat me to it!

perch said:

this is my first brew a red ale that we made sunday night. i have a two stage fermenter. after the boil cooled i poured the wort into the plastic fermenter. i think i was supposed to use the glass carboy first. is it to late to pour the wort into the glass carboy? not sure what to do next.

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The plastic fermenter is probably the right one! Usually if you're doing two -stage fermenting, you use a glass carboy for the secondary to reduce headspace in the secondary.

It's definitely too late to pour the beer now! Once fermentation starts, you don't want to risk oxidizing the beer. From here on out, do every transfer sample "quietly" without splashing and transfer via siphon also quietly without splashing!

You're fine. In fact, you'd be better off just using a single fermenter for the batch. Just let it stay there for a couple weeks and then check the FG.

Use the carboy to start another batch!

Sounds like you brewed in your bottling bucket. The beer will be fine. A lot of us use spigoted buckets as primaries. Only issue you'll have is at bottling time. Pick up another bucket, and you can have two brews going at once. One in the carboy, one in the bucket, and have the other for bottling days.

And here is the only downside of HBT mobile, by the time you are done composing your reply on the tiny keyboard, three other people have already beaten you to the punch!

thank you for the quick replys. the plastic fermenter is larger than the glass carboy. i will follow your advice. thanks