How long for a primary fermentation?

I made a yuegling clone, partial grain partial extract, last thurs the 25th with a starting gravity of 1.054. I used california 2112 yeast, and it is still going pretty well... Around 1 bubble/3 sec. The recipe said to put it in the secondary fermenter at 7 days, but I'm afraid this might halt the process!? Any suggestions?

rewerb said:

I made a yuegling clone, partial grain partial extract, last thurs the 25th with a starting gravity of 1.054. I used california 2112 yeast, and it is still going pretty well... Around 1 bubble/3 sec. The recipe said to put it in the secondary fermenter at 7 days, but I'm afraid this might halt the process!? Any suggestions?

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Seven days is a guideline...you really want to wait until fermentation is near done before racking to secondary. I wait until the bubbles are down to less than one per minute (however long that takes), and the krausen has fallen.

Thanks, I wasn't quite sure how long it should take! My others were ales and quieted down pretty quickly.

While we're on the subject...

Since my Primary fermentation is taking place in a very crude setup (just a 5 gallon bucket with unsealed lid to allow oxygen in/carbon dioxide out) with no airlocks or anything (I don't even have a hydrometer eeek ) I have no idea when primary fermentation is going to be complete. It's been brewing for about 6 days and has stopped rapidly fermenting, and the layer of krausen has disappeared. Is there any crude way of telling whether fermentation is complete? Such as visible layers developing, differences in colour? Anything would be a help thanks

Once the krausen has fallen out as completely as it can, you're pretty safe to go to secondary. Maybe give it a day or two after krausen has fallen completely and rack it over.

I've been lazy recently though, so my method has been "whenever I get to it after 1 and a half weeks have passed."