secondary fermenter question

hi everyone hope you had a good Christmas, I've had a Coopers Cerveza on the brew for six days now, 1kg of light spray malt rather than straight dextrose, and a steady temp of 72. There has been a lot of action from the airlock and plenty of scuz inside the fermenting bucket. The OG was 1.050 and now that the airlock has calmed down it's reading 1.010 (black ring on the hydrometer). Its still very cloudy so I'm thinking of racking it to a secondary fermentation bucket for another week to leave behind as much crud as possible before batch priming and bottling. Should I wait a few more days before transferring to a secondary fermenter or is 1.010 as low as the hydrometer is likely to go?

You can leave it in primary to clear. It's usually a personal preference if you secondary or not.

I agree^^

As far as is it done? Maybe. Check the gravity again in a day or two. If it's still 1.010, then it's done. After FG is reached, I recommend letting it sit another week to let the yeast drop and clear the beer. For super clear beer, I also recommend a cold crash and fining with gelatin before packaging.

The cloudiness will fall out whether it's in the primary or secondary. I usually wait for it to drop in my primary - then my secondary us just much cleaner and has less gunk at the bottom. I keg - so when I'm lagering I go right into the keg as secondary / lagering vessel. If I end up with too much stuff in the keg I do another transfer - so I suppose it's to a tertiary vessel.

I usually go with 2 to 3 weeks in primary, then kegs as a secondary, or use a secondary fermenter, I keg my shorter aging beers, long age beers go into a secondary.

I like the results I get with leaving my brews on the yeast in primary at least 14 days or longer, the beers seem to finish out with better flavor on the yeast.

I have tried (on 2 batches) transferring to the keg as soon as my beer has reached final gravity (about 7 days) and did not like the results, both times the beer took about a extra 3 to 4 weeks longer than normal in keg to taste finished, they seemed to hang on to that green beer taste for quite a long time.

IMO yeast are not done just because your beer has hit FG, yeast need time to finish your beer and clean up the mess they make in your beer while they are fermenting out the sugars.

Cheers

cheers guys, I've been told that the yeast clears up the gack from the fermentation process after converting the sugar to alchol. I'll leave it in the primary for another week then rack to a secondary just to remove as much crud as possible, should have a nice clear beer when its finished! cheers again

There really isn't any reason to move it to a secondary, it will clear up just as well in that weeks time in the primary and you are less likely to introduce an infection of oxidation just leaving it where it is at. Basically you gain no advantage in racking it over to a secondary, but you do have a chance of ruining your beer by doing so.

Trox said:

There really isn't any reason to move it to a secondary, it will clear up just as well in that weeks time in the primary and you are less likely to introduce an infection of oxidation just leaving it where it is at. Basically you gain no advantage in racking it over to a secondary, but you do have a chance of ruining your beer by doing so.

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that makes sense Trox. I was worried the brew would remain cloudy which is what happened the first time I brewed the Coopers cerveza. It was my first attempt at brewing and being impatient to taste the results, I bottled it as soon as it finished fermenting (6 days). Anyway I tested the FG today again, been the same for three days now but each day it gets a bit clearer. So i'll bottle it at the weekend, cheers again

I found that my beers will actually clear a bit faster left on the yeast cake too, rather than transferring it to secondary, I use secondary's for long aging beers so they rant taking up one of my kegs.

When I said before that I used kegs as a secondary I should have been more clear, kegging off the primary fermenter is the same as bottling off of the primary, and I keg off of the primary most of the time.

Cheers