ok everything is probably fine....

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erollinc

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well i just recently bottled my first attempt at a wheat and while i was at it i brewed up an ipa.... i jsut racked into the secondary like 2 days ago and im not seeing ANY action yet.... there wasnt hardly any action in the primary and im beginning to worry the yeast might not be working..

the wheat i did ... didnt do a whole lot in primary but it exploded in the secondary in a couple days

should i let it go ? or do something... i remember reading that wheats tend to have more violent fermentation.... but im jsut worried...

thanks
jake
 
You shouldn't see any action in the seconday; it all takes place in the primary. My guess is that you moved the first one too quickly. Really, there is no secondary fermentaion; it's a clearing vessel.

Take a gravity reading - it's more than likely done
 
the term 'secondary fermentation' is really a misnomer. there shouldn't be any fermenting happening in secondary...rather, its for clearing the beer, prior to bottle/kegging.

that said, you need to be taking hydrometer readings to know the beer is 'done' in primary. watching the airlock is next to useless. a warm room will make finished beer vent CO2 out of solution, causing airlock bubbles.
many bucket lids and carboy caps have weak seals and leak CO2, causing no airlock activity even during peak fermentation periods.
 
sooo should i just keep on going with the process? do you suppose 1 week would have been enough?.... should i just rack into a bucket and take hydrometer readings?
 
It depends on the beer. 2 weeks would be more benifitial.
If it was done going into secondary then taking a hydrometer readings is a good habit to get into but nor necessary.
 
I just did my first wheat beer too (First beer of any kind actually). It didn't have a lot of activity in the primary after the first day or so. I gave it a good swirl and stirred up the yeast a little yesterday evening (4 days in primary at this point) and this morning it was blowing out of the airlock. Had to hook up the blow off to keep the carpet clean.

I'm guessing racking it over might have just re-suspended some of the yeast and got it going again. That's what happened to me last night but hey, I'm still new so I could be way off base.
 
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