First Batch Question

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Ryno09

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My first attempt is a Sunshine Wheat clone...Everything seems to be going well. Last night i racked from the primary to secondary. My question is how much activity will i see in the airlock during secondary fermentation? Also how much surgar should be used when bottleing a 5 gallon batch? Any info would help out alot.
 
Generally speaking, you should wait until the primary fermentation is over before transferring to secondary. There shouldn't be a lot of fermentation activity in the secondary, although often you see some after racking due to rousing up some yeast while racking. The main benefits of the secondary are said to be clarification of the beer (due to settling) and bulk aging of the beer.

Most people prime with ~3/4c corn sugar adjusted to personal preference of carbonation level.
 
BeeGee said:
Most people prime with ~3/4c corn sugar adjusted to personal preference of carbonation level.

Agreed with this-just make sure that you dissolve it into boiling water first, to sanitiz/sterilize it. I normally use 3/4 cup into 2 cups boiling water for a 5G batch, then it goes into the bottling bucket and I rack onto that. mixes it nice, and no beasties in the sugar.
 
fermentation had stoped in the primary but like you said there was a little activity in the airlock of the secondary, i assume due to the stirring up during the transfer. also my original gravity on this batch was at 1.036 and my target was 1.050 will this cause any problems or just less alcohol in the final product? also what may have caused it to be low like that?
 
It'll be fine, just lower in alcohol. We'd have to see a recipe to comment on what made the OG lower than expected. Oftentimes it's due to adding too much top-off water, or not stirring the top-off water into the wort before taking a gravity reading.
 
Ryno09 said:
My question is how much activity will i see in the airlock during secondary fermentation?

With a secondary fermentation you dont want to see much activity at all really unless you added something to it and expect it to go through another fermentation (like fruit for example). You want the yeast to settle out in the primary. This is why you rack to the secondary, to get it off the yeast (one reason).
 
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