No bubbling in secondary fermentation... what did I screw up?

I tried brewing an IPA ~2 weeks ago (first homebrew attempt), and just stuck it into secondary fermentation. It was bubbling actively pretty quick after putting it into the primary fermentation but I noticed it had slowed considerably (to a virtual stop) recently. I had hoped the bubbles would pick up in secondary fermentation, but its not really doing anything (its been in the secondary fermenter about 4 days).

I made a few mistakes while brewing so my hopes aren't THAT high for this batch.. but I was wondering if you had any ideas whats up. At this moment it is a little cold (64 degrees) in the tub the carboy is in, but its been in the 67 +/- 2 range virtually the whole rest of the tiem (and its hot int he house right now so that should be fixed momentarily).

I used dry yeast... I had two bags (what the brew store gave me),a nd just used one. The instructions didn't really specify if I should use either or both, and a friend just said pick one. Should I have used both? If so... should I sprinkle the other one in or is it screwed?

Thanks!

im not a pro at brewing by any means, but normally after about 3-4 days the really active bubbling will normally slow down to about 1 to 2 bubble per minute, thats when i move mine to a secondary, normally in the secondary you hardly ever notice bubbles because the yeast isn't as active as it once was, it is starting to go dormant, iirc. there is still fermentation occurring but at a much slower pace. the yeast is now cleaning up the beer and everything is falling out of the beer to make it nice and clear.

You're good. That's how it goes. I'm on about my tenth batch, and my current brew in my secondary is the first time I've ever seen a secondary bubble. It's also the first time I've made a yeast starter.

Google yeast life cycle, others explain it better than I.

Before wondering if your fermentation is stuck, use your hydrometer. You want to make sure your beer is within a few points of the recipe's anticipated FG. If you have an auto siphon or wine thief sanitize it and grab enough beer to fill up your hydrometer's test jar (I just use the clear tube it came in). Don't forget to adjust your reading for temperature.

Do this again in a couple days if it is a little higher than you want the reading to be. If there is no change then your fermentation has stopped.

"Secondary fermenter" is a bit of a misnomer. Really the only time it should be fermenting is if you add some yeast food to it.

sweet that makes me feel better. i may give it a few days before using the hydrometer, but I'll do that for sure. thanks!

Your airlock shouldn't be bubbling in secondary. Fermentation should be complete BEFORE you even rack it to secondary. And you determine that with 2 gravity readings over 3 days. I recommend folks don't even take their first reading til day 12 and again at day 14 and rack then if it's done. That way it insures fermentation is complete and gives the yeast time to cleanup the byproducts of fermentation that leads to off flavors.

Your secondary is for clearing, though people now adays skip secondary and instead opt for a month in primary instead. Those of us who do it only use a secondary if we are adding something like oak or fruit.

But either way no fermentation should be happening in secondary.

Revvy said:

Your airlock shouldn't be bubbling in secondary. Fermentation should be complete BEFORE you even rack it to secondary. And you determine that with 2 gravity readings over 3 days. I recommend folks don't even take their first reading til day 12 and again at day 14 and rack then if it's done. That way it insures fermentation is complete and gives the yeast time to cleanup the byproducts of fermentation that leads to off flavors.

Your secondary is for clearing, though people now adays skip secondary and instead opt for a month in primary instead. Those of us who do it only use a secondary if we are adding something like oak or fruit.

But either way no fermentation should be happening in secondary.

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Revvy,

Though I generally agree with and most often use the 3-4 weeks primary and skip the secondary I am also in the boat that racking to secondary normally jump starts about a 24 hour fermentation period.

I only use it if my beer did not quit hit the gravity it should have. Rack to secondary and it kicks up and drops a couple of points in 24 hours. I don't know why it does that other than stir up the beer/yeast mix.

I also have experimented with racking to secondary after about 4 weeks to see what happens. And in almost all cases the beer drops a couple points. So in my practices the primary more often than not does not completely ferment out unless I stir up the yeast. Most often I am alright with that because I hit my desired gravity anyway. I also think that my beers are clearer when using a long primary.



Sorry, not trying to hijack the thread. Take it for what it is worth.

Revvy said:

Your airlock shouldn't be bubbling in secondary. Fermentation should be complete BEFORE you even rack it to secondary. And you determine that with 2 gravity readings over 3 days. I recommend folks don't even take their first reading til day 12 and again at day 14 and rack then if it's done. That way it insures fermentation is complete and gives the yeast time to cleanup the byproducts of fermentation that leads to off flavors.

Your secondary is for clearing, though people now adays skip secondary and instead opt for a month in primary instead. Those of us who do it only use a secondary if we are adding something like oak or fruit.

But either way no fermentation should be happening in secondary.

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Sorry for reviving an old post, but just tried a secondary for the first time (after 8 successful brews). I am trying to get a clearer IPA and wanted to dry hop anyway. My question is if there is no continuing fermentation, doesn't that allow oxygen to contact the liquid? I thought a blanket of CO2 is necessary to prevent oxidation and contamination.

Thanks

Sg ?

HolyBeer said:

Sorry for reviving an old post, but just tried a secondary for the first time (after 8 successful brews). I am trying to get a clearer IPA and wanted to dry hop anyway. My question is if there is no continuing fermentation, doesn't that allow oxygen to contact the liquid? I thought a blanket of CO2 is necessary to prevent oxidation and contamination.

Thanks

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If you're going to use secondary then you could use two different sized containers so that you have enough liquid to almost completely top up the second one.

For example, you do a 5.5 gallon batch in a 6.5 gallon carboy so that you have enough headspace to hopefully prevent blowing out krausen through your airlock. When racking 5.5 gallons, you leave about half a gallon of trub/yeast cake behind. That should give you exactly enough to top up a 5 gallon carboy without much headspace remaining.

You can dry hop and get clear beer in the primary. Finings and cold crashing helps.
And you won't loose sleep worrying about oxygen, headspace and contamination.

Hi guys, newbie here, just brewed my first IPA, 47 liters (about 12.5 gallons), kegged 27 liters with 180 grams of sugar and 8 gr of safale 04, bottled the rest with 100 gr of sugar and 4 gr of safale04. Tried a bottle after a day and it was perrrfect. Dead excited. Perfect head, lovely flavor, great consistency. However, it was just that one bottle! I tried 3 more bottles and they were ALL flat... Should I be worried or just sit tight? It's been 5 days now since I bottled, should there be bubbles by now? Any thoughts much appreciated!

CabrAzul said:

Hi guys, newbie here, just brewed my first IPA, 47 liters (about 12.5 gallons), kegged 27 liters with 180 grams of sugar and 8 gr of safale 04, bottled the rest with 100 gr of sugar and 4 gr of safale04. Tried a bottle after a day and it was perrrfect. Dead excited. Perfect head, lovely flavor, great consistency. However, it was just that one bottle! I tried 3 more bottles and they were ALL flat... Should I be worried or just sit tight? It's been 5 days now since I bottled, should there be bubbles by now? Any thoughts much appreciated!

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Patience. Depending on conditioning temp you should get some bubbles by now if they are at room-temp, but not "enough". When you say you had a nice foam and bubbles after one day it sounds strange, unless you conditioned in 40C overnight.

Just make sure you stir in the bottling bucket once in a while. The sugars tend to fall to the bottom and if you don't stir, unless you are fast when you bottle, you can get uneven levels of co2 as the bottles you bottle last will get more sugars in them.

If using a plastic fermenting bucket, how are you guys taking a sample gravity reading every 2-3 days? Do you just pop the top off and use like a turkey baster to draw a sample??

CraigKing said:

If using a plastic fermenting bucket, how are you guys taking a sample gravity reading every 2-3 days? Do you just pop the top off and use like a turkey baster to draw a sample??

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When doing a refractometer reading all it takes is a few drops so I just put "something" sanitized in there and get the drops. If I'm doing a hydro I'll just use a wine thief.

Some people have a small fawcet at the bottom so they draw the sample from that.

Pkrd said:

You can dry hop and get clear beer in the primary. Finings and cold crashing helps.
And you won't loose sleep worrying about oxygen, headspace and contamination.

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^This^

I always dry hop in the primary. And for my bigger beers that will be around a long time I will cold crash/fine in the primary too. Depending on the yeast I used it will take from 3-7 days to crash clear after crashing then adding the gelatin. I use mostly US-05, and it takes a while to crash out. I only do this on my bigger beers since I don't want that yeast and gelatin sitting in the bottom of the keg for 9+ months and imparting off flavors. On lighter beers that I will go through faster I usually fine in the keg to save time as it will be carbing and clearing at the same time that way. I know I'm not going to want that IPA or PA after 3 months anyway, so I'm not worried about autolosis.

If you are going to have to leave a beer in a fermentor for a long time for some reason then that is when you should consider transferring to secondary. Aging a large beer on oak cubes or spirals for months is an example of a good reason to secondary.

Smellyglove said:

Patience. Depending on conditioning temp you should get some bubbles by now if they are at room-temp, but not "enough". When you say you had a nice foam and bubbles after one day it sounds strange, unless you conditioned in 40C overnight.

Just make sure you stir in the bottling bucket once in a while. The sugars tend to fall to the bottom and if you don't stir, unless you are fast when you bottle, you can get uneven levels of co2 as the bottles you bottle last will get more sugars in them.

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Thanks for your response, point is: they're in the bottles, so I can't really stir them anymore, I can shake them if you think that'd help?

The original question was posted several years ago. I think any advise that would be useful to the original brewer is already given.

The problem with dry hopping in the primary is that you're forced to choose between either stripping out some of the precious hop aroma, or settling for a less-than-clear beer.

If you dry hop, then cold crash and add gelatin, the gelatin can diminish the hop aroma because it will pull out some of those hop aromas that you added when dry hopping.

If you cold crash and add gelatin before dry hopping, then you must either keep the beer cold while dry hopping (which dramatically decreases the effectiveness of dry hopping, as far fewer oils are able to move into solution in cold beer than in warm beer), or warm the beer back up after clearing, to add the dry hops. In my experience, warming up a beer that has already been cold crashed and hit with gelatin will cause CO2 to come out of solution, which will stir up some of the sediment back into solution and re-cloud the beer.

The best approach, in my opinion, is to cold-crash and add gelatin in primary, then after a few days, while the beer is still cold, rack it to another carboy (sized appropriately to minimize headspace) leaving the sediment behind, allow it to warm back up to room temperature, then add the dry hops.

This gives me nice, clear beer with a strong hop aroma.