move to secondary, or no?????

Ok, so my stout has been in primary for 4 days. All bubbling in the airlock has ceased, for the most part. Should I go ahead and move it to secondary, or let it sit for 3 more days? What would the benefits be of leaving it in primary vs. moving to secondary? If I remove the lid and take a gravity reading, and decide to leave it, will the beer be ok?

Well you should take a couple readings with your hydrometer. Or you could let it stay for a week in primary, then 2 weeks in secondary, then 3 weeks in bottles: they 1-2-3 method.

The 1-2-3 method is preached around here a lot. I don't use it.

If you have a hydrometer...learn how to use it. It'll take ALL the guess work out of your decision making process.

The best advice I can give you right now is: Regardless of how many days your brew has been fermenting...NEVER rack to the secondary if your gravity HAS NOT fallen to approx 75% of the OG.

Once it's hit 75% it's essentially done.

The purpose of racking to the secondary is for clearing, aging and mellowing.

Trust me. You won't be disappointed.

And welcome!!

I concur with HB Bill (as usual), learn to use your hydrometer.

The consequences of moving it too early is that you're taking the beer off of the yeast that are currently fermenting and conditioning your beer.

There is no negative to leaving it in primary for 2-3 weeks.

I agree with the consensus. Leave it in primary for a minimum of 1 week.

I've seen this question many times before and the best answer I've heard was " let the beer tell you when it's ready, not you telling the beer it is." I don't even take a gravity reading for at least 1 week sometimes closer to 2.

homebrewer_99 said:

The 1-2-3 method is preached around here a lot. I don't use it.

If you have a hydrometer...learn how to use it. It'll take ALL the guess work out of your decision making process.

The best advice I can give you right now is: Regardless of how many days your brew has been fermenting...NEVER rack to the secondary if your gravity HAS NOT fallen to approx 75% of the OG.

Once it's hit 75% it's essentially done.

The purpose of racking to the secondary is for clearing, aging and mellowing.

Trust me. You won't be disappointed.

And welcome!!

Click to expand...

What does the math look like if I started out with an OG of 1.050, I just want to make sure I calculate 75% correctly would it be OG-FG/OG ? so for my brew right now 1.050 - 1.020 / .05 =

If I understand the how to calculate attenuation (percent of sugar converted to alcohol), 75% attenuation would yield a FG of 1.012 (1.0125 to be precise). Going from 1.050 to 1.020 is 60%.

The way I calculate it is to ignore the number to the left of the decimal point. eg - 1.050 = 50.

Therefore, going from 1.050 to 1.020, focus on 50 going to 20 (since that is the change). Water has a SG of 1. The increase in SG is from the malt. What you are looking for is the percent of malt converted to alcohol, so ignore the "water" component, and focus on the "malt" component.

But, right now, that is semantics. Your hydrometer will tell you about fermentation.

Your recipe should have given you a FG estimate. If not, it can be estimated by knowing the attenuation expectations of your yeast.

Someone, please correct me if I am wrong.

Just take the last 2 digits of your OG and divide by 4. So, 1.050 = 50/4. =12.5. FG should be 1.0125 or so.