Secondary yet?

Well May 1st my LHBS is holding an unofficial beer contest for a gift certificate. I brewed an all grain American Pale Ale (or at least I think it is an American Style. I will post the recipe I used later -- this is only my sixth batch), and I just took a gravity ready, after six days, which is sitting at 1.026. It still has a layer of krausen covering the top, but I am wondering when I should rack to my secondary.

Should I wait till it finishes fermenting, or should I rack it now and let it finish fermenting in the secondary?


Grain
9lbs Pale Malt
8oz Crystal 20L
8oz Carapils
8oz Victory
Hops
1oz Columbus (30 min)
.5oz Fuggle (15 min)
.5oz Glacier (15 min)
.5oz Fuggle (Flameout)
.5oz Glacier (Flameout)
Yeast
2 WLP001 California Ale (no starter)

Brewed 3/10/2010
Pre-boil: 1.043
OG: 1.054
Current FG: 1.026 (as of 3/17/2010)
Est. FG: 1.012

Edit: The airlock is no longer bubbling

I personally would wait. I usually have a rule of atleast 2 weeks in the primary. I feel like the yeasts have an easier time cleaning up some of the off flavors that were created early in fermentation, when they are still in the primary.

General rule of thumb is if the fermentation is still pretty active then let it go in the primary. I'd always let it settle down completely before racking over myself. If you rack it when its still rockin' rollin' it won't ruin it, just change the profile. If you're wanting to enter it into a contest I'd say let it ride in the primary for now.

Leave it. The secondary isn't for fermenting, it is for clearing.

I'd agree twith the rest to certain degree.............However, I'm a risk taker so if you think it's time do it...........You'll learn more that way anyway........

If the Krausen hasn't fallen, you're definitely not ready for the bright tank yet.

Personally, I'd wait till hell freezes over before moving an APA over to a secondary, but then I'm pretty firmly in the no secondary camp.

The Germans would move the beer from the primary before the krausen fell to avoid getting all that gunk back in their beer. The yeast will keep fermenting. They don't need any trub material to turn sugar into alcohol. So, the answer is, move it when you want. Personally, I let it sit in the primary until the krausen is gone, just because there is so little head space in the secondary. Leaving it in there won't hurt.

Now, if you want to dry hop for 7 days, and you need it in the bottle in 8 days for the contest, go ahead and move it (maybe use a blow off tube). But if time is not an issue, give it a few more days.

Moving it during fermentation is a very good way to stall your fermentation completely. It is really hard to get it going again once it's stalled. I leave all of mine for 4 weeks in primary to let the yeast finish its jobs of fermenting, cleaning up, and clearing.

Nurmey said:

Moving it during fermentation is a very good way to stall your fermentation completely. It is really hard to get it going again once it's stalled. I leave all of mine for 4 weeks in primary to let the yeast finish its jobs of fermenting, cleaning up, and clearing.

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The only time the yeast need the trub to do anything, is in the absence of oxygen. If your wort is properly aerated at the beginning, your yeast will do all they need to do. The yeast don't know where they are. If they encounter a sugar, they eat it and spit out alcohol and CO2. They don't think to themselves, "well, I liked the primary fermenter so much better than this new bottle, so I'm going on strike".

If the yeast needed trub material to ferment sugar, how could we bottle condition?