snow day

my school closed down today becase of snow up here in NH so it was going to be the perfect brew day as well, i only had one class but the excuse was perfect plus my wort chiller just got more efficient (more snow on the deck).

My other brew has been in the primary for a week so i went to take the SG and it was way to high 1.025 ( Og 1.062). Damn, brew day is over i guess ill just read about AG all day instead.

I looked at it yesterday and there was lots of dried trub around the top edge of the bucket no foam on top and pieces of trub floating on top. TOday there was alittle bit of faom not much though. when i put it back in the closet it bubbled fora few minutes but then stopped, i havnt had any airlock activity for three or four days i imagine it is still fementing as ive read here many times. My Og was 1.062 the recippe i had called fora 1.044 im not sure if the recippe was wrong but wondering if the high OG could result ina high FG. and also i should definlty wait till fermentation is done to rack to secondary right ? its beena week (1-2-3) method i know i can just take af ew readings over afew days but i dont like the risk of contamination/loss of beer to taking multiple readings

it sure wwould have been nice to brew today

looking fora quick answer here sorry for asking overstated questions, is it alright to rack to the secondary at 1.025 or should i let it drop all the way before racking?

I would let it hang out in the primary some more....it isn't like it has been there anywhere long enough to worry about picking up off flavors

yah thats what i fugred i was jsut hoping to free up the primary to brew today oh well

If I had the ingredients I would be brewing today also - snow day from work, and aside from shoveling and on-line gaming and surfing the web, there is not much to do.

What's the danger of racking to the secondary a little early?
I'm just curious as I would hate to miss a perfect brew day because I couldn't free up a fermenter.
Given my limited experience with beer brewing I would rack to the secondary and then brew today. You could even reuse the yeast cake if desired.
I'm hoping someone will correct me if I am wrong.
Craig

As far as I have experienced, as long as the krausen has fallen and bubbles are 30-45 sec. apart you can rack to secondary. The yeast in suspension will finish their business. If you're gonna re use the cake, even better while it's fresh! Brew on.

aright sweet sounds like ill rack then, moving the bucket around caused a little activity a bube ever couple minuets no krausen

I have never reused the yeast cake i before, the one in there now is dry yeast and i ahve a wyeast 1007 . should i mix them or jsut throw out the trub

If i do use the yeast cake too do i just empty the bucket no rinsing washing and just put the new wort right in it? if i dont reuse the yeast can i still just dump and rinse or should i sanitize im running low on my powwder and hesitant about bleach. i gfiugre it should be pretty bacteria free but could the mixing of the left over wort could cause off flavors and would it be bacteria free?

You're not thinking straight.
If you want to brew, but don't have an available primary, you shouldn't even consider freeing up the primary early. You should realize that you need another primary.
Of course, for every primary, you need two secondaries, so you will probably need a brace of secondaries as well.

-a.

CBBaron said:

What's the danger of racking to the secondary a little early?

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Depends on the yeast, It it flocculates well (like english yeasts do) you may end up taking it from the yeast before the yeast can clean-up diacetyl and acedealdehyde. Which results in a green beer taste that won't go away. But if the yeast doen't flocculate that well (I would even put Cali Ale in that category) then I wouldn't worry about transferring to a secondary early. You will have enough yeast in suspension to finish the job. This also requires that you keep the secondary at fermentation temperatures until you all visible fermention activity stops.

I know others think different about that, but I do that all the time and haven't had the problems that are commonly associated with racking to early.

Kai

tbulger said:

should i mix them or jsut throw out the trub

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I would say dump the yeast, clean and sanitize the fermenter. It's not worth to cut this corner. A wasted batch of beer is more money than getting more sanitizer or even using bleach in the recommended way.

Kai