just racked to secondary

i just racked my beer from my primary to my secondary. it has been about 4.5 to 5 days and the krausen(or watever) has fallen. it is in a glass carboy with an airlock. how long should i leave it? also is the taste i got when i siphoned the way my beer is goin to taste?

They say you should follow the one two three rule: one week in the primary, two weeks in the secondary, and three weeks conditioning in bottles. The way it tasted gives you a ballpark idea of the final taste, but it will change and improve significantly over time. Plus, you tasted it when it was warm and flat, so you know it will be better in that way, at least.

Give it at least two weeks in secondary. It may not even be done fermenting completely and you'll want to let all the particulates settle out before you bottle. The only batch I've done so far that tasted good when racking was my Killian's clone lager. My first two ales tasted pretty harshly bitter but were pretty good after bottle aging a month. I know you're anxious but start planning your next batch if you must play.

Bobby_M said:

I know you're anxious but start planning your next batch if you must play.

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Excellent advice. So far I've not actually enjoyed any of my pre-conditioned samples. I quit trying to use that to judge the final flavor of the beer. Your beer will turn out great. Just plan a new batch and try to forget about the current one for a few weeks.

The worst thing you can do to your beer is drink it green. Racking it early and bottling early will not make it age faster. Your fermenter is empty, so what are you waiting for? Start another batch.

Good advice... I am starting my oatmeal nut stout as my raspberry ale is conditioning in the secondary!

Notice I said "planning" and not "brewing". Unless you've got multiple secondaries, you'll be tempted to bottle your existing batch too early in order to free up your secondary for the new batch. I already have an order in for another secondary vessel for this very reason (especially when you start doing lagers), but with only a single primary and secondary, the tightest schedule you should try is two weeks between brews (which represents the minimum time a batch sits in secondary). I call this the "bottle n' rack" schedule. Each week goes:

brew1
rack1
brew2
bottle1/rack2
brew3
bottle2/rack3

etc

buy more carboys!

I hear that. I only have one six gallon carboy right now, but I have plans to get at least two more in the near future. It's like driving a Pinto and hanging out with guys in Porsches.

As of the UPS delivery today, I've got two 6.5g buckets one primary/one bottling, two 5 gal better bottles (secondaries), and one 6g better bottle so I can watch yeast a churnin on a batch or two.

By the way, brewbyu.com has 5g better bottles for $17.

This makes me wonder about my batch - sry bout the slight hijack - I've had it in the secondary for about 3 and a bit weeks, and I'll probably only get to bottling by the time it reaches its 4th week, thanks to my pesky exams. Would this extra time in the secondary mean that I don't have to wait as long for the beer to get past it's "green" stage when I bottle? Or does it not really help in the aging process as much as if I had just bottled after two weeks and kept them in the bottes for all that time? I hope it's the former, cos I don't want to wait too long to get a nice drinkable beer (fingers crossed that I like it).