Racking to Secondary

I have a few quick questions regarding going to a secondary.

When transferring from primary to secondary should i worry about splashing it or making it aerate?

How long until I should see some activity in the airlock (further fermentation)?

Thanks in advanced

After the yeast is added then it's best to avoid splashing. It's probably not going to arm the beer if you splash it a bit.

As for actual secondary fermentation that is not usually what a second vessel is for. The majority if not all fermentation should take place in the primary. Secondary generally is for clearing/conditioning. You may get some bubbles from further dissolved CO2 being released or a little further yeast activity after the disturbance.

If you are adding more fermentables after racking then you should get a second fermentation.

If you read around the forum you will learn that using a secondary is not always necessary.

thanks for the info!

Avoid aerating in any way after fermentation has completed or is near completion. This is another great reason to transfer to secondary while fermentation is still active. The couple gravity points eaten int he secondary will "scrub" the O2 out of the beer as it finishes fermenting in the secondary.

http://blogs.homebrewtalk.com/Boerderij_Kabouter/Secondary_fermentation_and_why_it_makes_me_crazy/

Do people add more yeast in the secondary? What about if you are doing a beer that is more long term like a barley wine? Do you rack to the secondary at all?

People do not usually add more yeast to the secondary fermenter unless they had a stuck fermentation issue. For a barleywine, a secondary is great to age/clear the beer. It's better to get the beer off of the primary yeast cake if you're going to age it for awhile because those yeast will begin to die off (autolyze) and give bad flavors.

I almost always rack to secondary, but it's probably unnecessary in most cases. Don't add any more yeast to the secondary. I rack only to remove the beer from the trub, for long-term aging, to free up my primary for the next batch, and to dry hop (I know many dry hop right in the primary, but I like to avoid anything, like trub, from interfering with the hops).

Most do not add more yeast into the secondary - it kind of defeats the purpose of clearing the beer IMO. Personally I like to rack just about everything to a secondary after 2 weeks for clearing, but even those who usually skip the secondary would probably use it with a barley wine. Stronger darker beers will benefit from long-term bulk aging, longer than you'd want to keep it in contact with the trub and yeast from the primary.

I would normally rack anything that is going to be left more than 4 weeks before bottling or kegging.