Racking to Secondary

Hello all,

I'm about to rack my second brew to the secondary, and was wondering about timing. I know that a good guess as to when to do this is after the krausen has fallen, and the fermentation has almost stopped, but I was wondering how crucial it is to do this fast. Here is my situation: the krasuen fell two days ago (8 days), and now the air lock is bubbling about once a minute. My dilemma is that I want to wait for a time when my neighbour can come over to assist as we are brewing this batch together, and it may not be for a few days. Is there a time when it is too long in the primary? Rather, if I let the fermentation completely finish in the primary, will there be no yeast left in suspension for the secondary stage and hence none left to carbonate after two weeks in the secondary, or is it fine to leave the beer in the primary until a convenient time to rack (but I know that leaving it on top of the turb for too long will create off flavours, but I’m under the impression that this is on the scale of months)?

Cheers to beers,


Rob

You will be fine to wait a few days. Some folks will tell you that you should not leave the beer on the trub and spent yeasties. But IMO, you won't experience off-flavors for a few weeks.

Wait a few days so that your buddy can help you. That way, you can have a few brews while you rack it.

Truth be told, this is actually probably the number one reason why it's good to have more buckets and carboys than you think you'll need--it keeps you from rushing a step just because you need the bucket or carboy for abother batch. A cople more days in primary wont hurt a thing.

The most recent batch I made, I think I rushed racking a little. Better late than early (as she always says...)

While most people here I think advocate racking to a secondary at some point, there are some people that don't believe in it at all. Their reasoning is that racking is just another chance to contaminate or oxidize the beer and that leaving the beer on the yeast cake gives the yeast more of a chance to 'do what its meant to do' after fermentation like scrubbing out diacytl and sulfer flavors etc. I'm sure there is a point where leaving in the primary too long is not a good idea, but a few weeks is not gunna make bad beer.