Potamus
Well-Known Member
I'm a relatively new brewer with a few batches under my belt and have found the forums to be a huge help.
I had a question about transferring to a secondary. I know a lot of people advocate skipping the secondary altogether, and I've done that on a couple of my brews with good results. But right now I'm working on a watermelon wheat recipe that calls for adding juice to the secondary after fermentation completes.
My question is why do you need to wait for fermentation to complete before racking? If the working yeast is suspended in the beer, won't it just get transferred over to the secondary and finish the job there? I've noticed that most people on the forums say fermentation should be complete (as measured by multiple hydrometer readings) before racking to secondary, but Brewer's Best kit instructions say to rack after 5-7 days when fermentation slows "but before it completes."
I had a question about transferring to a secondary. I know a lot of people advocate skipping the secondary altogether, and I've done that on a couple of my brews with good results. But right now I'm working on a watermelon wheat recipe that calls for adding juice to the secondary after fermentation completes.
My question is why do you need to wait for fermentation to complete before racking? If the working yeast is suspended in the beer, won't it just get transferred over to the secondary and finish the job there? I've noticed that most people on the forums say fermentation should be complete (as measured by multiple hydrometer readings) before racking to secondary, but Brewer's Best kit instructions say to rack after 5-7 days when fermentation slows "but before it completes."