OK to Rack to a Secondary?

I would like to free up my bucket and rack the coffee porter I have to a secondary. It's been in the primary now for 10 days. Is it ok to rack now and leave it in the secondary (glass carboy) for another 2 weeks or so?

Have you confirmed fermentation has completed? If it has, go for it although if it were me I would just leave the beer in the bucket and ferment your next beer in the carboy - if there isn't a reason to rack beer I push not to do it, not worth the risk - the bucket won't hurt anything (I own 1 carboy and 5 buckets, I leave beers in primary for months).

But if you want to move it over, I'd suggest getting a couple hydrometer readings over 3 days to be sure it has completed before moving.

Yes, if you are reasonably sure that active fermentation is done. You don't want to take it off the yeast cake if it still needs it. But if you have reached a stable FG, then get it out of the way and start that next batch baby!

If the yeast are done with the primary fermentation and you are most likely @ your FG then it would be "ok" to rack. I like to have my beer ontop of the yeast cake for a minimum of 3 weeks, but if you need a bucket for your next brew then you might have to rush it a little.

Thanks for the feedback. Think I'll leave it and brew the next batch in the carboy. Thanks all!

brewchick3 said:

Thanks for the feedback. Think I'll leave it and brew the next batch in the carboy. Thanks all!

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Do yourself a favor and don't cork / lock that carboy, run a blow off tube into a 1/2 gallon sanitized water until fermentation is completed. May save yourself a mess in the long run

Cheers!

frazier said:

......... You don't want to take it off the yeast cake if it still needs it. ..............

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I would like to clear this up. The fermenting beer does not need to be on the cake for it to do its job. The yeast that are still in suspension are doing 99% of the work. The yeast that have settled out are not that metabolically active.

Also, a properly pitched and aerated ale of moderate starting gravity can easily finish fermentation in under 5 days. After that, it is just aging/maturing and that can be done however you want.

For the record, it is always perfectly fine to transfer your beer to a secondary if you want to - provided the fementation is complete. This might only be an issue when using a HIGHLY flocculating yeast. Even if you do rush the move to secondary, the only problem is one of the points of using a secondary is to remove it from the bulk of the yeast. If you move it too early, you'll get extra yeast in your secondary, which partially defeats some of the reason to move it.

I don't worry about taking hydrometer readings before moving to a secondary. If it has pretty much stopped bubbling, then it is fine to move. However, taking hydrometer readings prior to bottling is very important as you want to ensure fermentation is complete at this point to avoid making bottle bombs.