stuck fermentation in the secondary?

I racked to the secondary three days ago, and have been watching it in the carboy. There are little bubbles coming up the side, but no major bubbling of the airlock like in the primary. In fact I've never seen the airlock release anything, however the little thing that keeps the air from escaping and having to go through the water is pushed up against the top, indicating there is some pressure. But there also is no foam or anything on the top. Pictures I've seen of carboy always have the foam on top, so I'm just wondering if it stopped fermenting.
My initial reaction is just to leave it alone and see what happens, but I also want to get it going if it's stopped.

How long did you have it in your primary?

Secondary fermenter is somewhat of a misnomer. No actual fermentation should be taking place in your secondary, and if it is, you racked too early. The pictures you are seeing are peoples glass primaries.

The secondary is just for clearing/conditioning before you bottle. When racked, a small amount of CO2 was released from suspension in the beer, creating a small amount of pressure in your carboy. Let it set in the carboy for about two weeks total and bottle. All is good and the CO2 released created a protective layer from any oxygenation.

ok good. It was in the primary for 5 days, and had stopped bubbling.

Hydrometer?

lol orfy... classic!

Sorry I just can't understand why people are concerned about fermentation and are worried if its done and they don't have/use an hydrometer. If you aren't concerned/worried/interested in it then fine don't bother with one.

If you want to know if a wort is cool enough you'd use a thermometer.
If you want to know if a wort is fermented you use a hydrometer.
Sure you can guess but that's what it is. A guess.

Sorry, don't mean to jack the thread. Maybe you just don't know what a hydrometer is or you have a reason for not using one. But if you and others did it'd stop this question being asked twice a day.

Sorry. I'll try to make that my last EAC post for a bit.
I did post the Budweiser thread to punish myself for it.

Yeah I took a reading and it was 13, 3 above the traget, but then again the OG was lower than target so I figured it was good. I just thought that it would get that head on it again like in the primary and finish out the .003 or so.

Now if you'd of said you had a hydrometer and gave us the readings we could of given you proper advice without the guessing.

Oh you mean the important details, I didn't think EACs needed those

You think we have powers above and beyond?
We don't, we don't we just don't like brewing with 50% sugar. Or guessing if a feremntation is finished, or boiling grains, or pitching yeast at 100f, or drinking piss water or.......... I think you get the picture.

z987k said:

Yeah I took a reading and it was 13, 3 above the traget, but then again the OG was lower than target so I figured it was good. I just thought that it would get that head on it again like in the primary and finish out the .003 or so.

Click to expand...

Actually, both of those work against you: if the OG is below the target (i.e. the target is 1.052 and you get 1.048), that means there is a smaller amount of fermentables in your wort to start with, and therefore less potential alcohol. If your FG was too high, that means not enough sugar was burned, which means less alcohol.

It's not really "bad" per se, but alcohol content is based on the difference between the OG and FG (OG - FG * 131). The greater that difference, the higher the alcohol content.

The reason your beer had a foamy head (krausen) on it in the primary was because the yeast were busy consuming sugar. This stopped after several days in the primary. When you put it in secondary, all you did was separate it from the spent yeast, which will keep the beer from getting any strange off-flavors. Secondary is mostly for clearing; no or *very* little fermentation (should) occur in there.