Transferring to secondary too soon

I'm about to move my belgian wit to secondary on top of a few pounds of raspberries. However, I'm still getting about 15 bubbles per minute in the primary. Will I have any problems if I rack today, or should I wait a few more days before I do it?

That's far too active a fermentation to rack; give it at least a couple of days before moving it. It's still working, give it time!

wait - especially if you're racking it onto fruit. The sugar in the fruit will likely spark up a little fermentation anyway

That's cool. I was going to do it today because I don't work, but my place is a mess anyway; I'm still in the middle of a major bottle cleaning project as well. It's been a week since I brewed, but it had about a 40hr lag time, so I suppose it's a few days behind schedule. Thanks for the advice.

good choice.....the last thing you want is a stuck ferment and beer ending in the 1.020s

That makes me think of another question. I currently have two 6gal carboys and one 5gal carboy. I'm planning on brewing a blonde this weekend, but that will give me three full carboys. I'm getting more and more obsessed with brewing, it seems, so I want to pump them out as fast as I can. However, it's going to become a logistical nightmare if I brew this blonde, because I want to brew an IPA about a week and a half later, and rack that on top of the yeast cake from the blonde ale.

In order to have a prayer of making it all work, I'll have to leave my belgian wit in secondary on top of the raspberries for a long time, or buy another 5gal carboy, or both. How long is okay for that? I know in general you can leave beer in secondary for a really long time, but does the fruit make a difference? I'm thinking I might need to leave it in secondary for up to a month.

I'd hestiate to leave it on the fruit more than two weeks, personally.

You may want to do a tertiary fermentation, anyway, with the rasberries; I had a few get into bottles, and they are like little snot balls. Not good drinks. If you could somehow co-ordinate a couple days in a tertiary, I think it would do you well.

Oh, I was planning a tertiary; that's my whole dilemma. I have my porter in the 5gal. After I move my wit from one 6gal to the other, I'm going to put the blonde ale into the empty 6gal. The problem comes from the fact that they'll both be ready to move around the same time. I suppose I could leave the blonde in primary a little longer and get the wit in and out of tertiary first.

You only need a couple days in tertiary, if that helps the logistics.

Or, when you rack to secondary, don't add the fruit. Add the fruit a week or so before you plan on racking to tertiary. That way, you've got your primary open, the wit in secondary, and no more carboys needed. You won't hurt the beer sitting in the secondary under airlock for a month but you don't want to leave it on the fruit anywhere near that long.

Lorena

Ah, so you're saying I could rack to secondary, and then add the fruit on top of the secondary later? That's a pretty good idea; I think that could actually take care of things. The only thing is, since it's a wit, it doesn't really need any extra time to clear. On the other hand, it will be conditioning, and the flavor will be improving, so I guess that's alright. I do kinda wanna just buy another carboy though. I'm so bad.

I've decided to make the blonde ale batch a bit large, say 5.5 gallons, and transfer it back to the other 6gal carboy for secondary, leaving the 5gal open for a tertiary with the raspberry wit. That should fix me up on all my problems.

With the amount of brewing you're doing, why not just pick up another carboy?

I have to agree about not leaving the brew on fruit too long, I brewed a fairly strong porter and racked it onto 2lbs of raspberries, it tasted like raspberry juice when I bottled 2 weeks later; luckily it mellowed out with time, but still...

Yeah, I suppose I really should. I'll never be able to manage two simultaneous sets of brew schedules without another 5gal. In fact, it seems more than likely that you'd normally need more 5gals than 6gals, since beers stay in secondary longer. Might have to just get two.

As for the raspberries, I was planning on using three pounds, but I wanted this to be a really strong raspberry flavor, hence the name, Razz Buried. My basic inspiration for this beer was adding about 1-2oz of Lindeman's Framboise to a pint of Ayinger Bräu-Weiss, which I used to be able to do at my bar until our distributor stopped carrying the Bräu-Weiss on draft!

So, I checked my belgian wit, and it's still going at a rate of nine bubbles per minute. I was planning on racking it to secondary today, but I suppose that's still too strong of a fermentation yet. My entire brewing schedule is getting thrown out of whack, and I'm running out of homebrews!

UPDATE: The wit is now bubbling at a rate of once every 45 seconds or so. This has been by far the slowest fermentation I've had. BeerSmith predicted 1.053 0G and 1.012 FG. My actual OG was 1.048. I just checked the gravity, and it's 1.017 now. It's been in primary for two weeks now, in a temp range of 64-68ºF.

I'm a bit frustrated right now. I mean, it's still bubbling, verrrry slowly, but it seems like it's on its last legs fermentation wise. I don't see this getting down to 1.012, and really, considering my OG was lower than the estimate, it seems like I should hit a FG even lower than that.

I was planning on racking onto raspberries tomorrow, but should I wait longer? At this rate, I'll have this thing in primary for three weeks, secondary for two, and tertiary for one. Then three more weeks in the bottle before it's ready. I know, I know, be patient, but my entire brew schedule is on hold until I move this beer into secondary! Arghhhh...

Sorry for the mini-rant. I suppose I just have more to learn about brewing and patience. My first three batches were bottled after eleven days, and this one is still at least a month away from bottling, it seems. Any advice or kind words appreciated.

Torchiest...

I think I've told you about my current Belgian Wit before. After nearly 2 solid weeks, it finally stopped bubbling. I racked it to 2ndary on monday, because I wasn't sure if it was truely done, and I want to let it age for at least a week or two before bottling. My OG was like 1.050, and when I racked to 2ndary it was @ 1.014 I hope this helps you.

BTW: Can you post your recipe for that Blackberry Fallout Stout? I've got some OREGON cans of Blackberries, and was planning on using them on a Stout. It would be cool to see what your recipe was like. Thanks!

5gB

Cool. I suppose I'll be fine if I rack tomorrow. It's close, and two more weeks should finish it off, I figure. I'm just a bit paranoid because my porter came out pretty high on the FG. As for my stout recipe:

6.00 lb Dark Liquid Extract
1.00 lb Barley, Flaked
1.00 lb Oats, Flaked
0.50 lb Black (Patent) Malt
0.50 lb Chocolate Malt
0.50 lb Roasted Barley
1.00 oz Target [11.00%] (30 min) 23.2 IBU
1.00 oz Williamette [5.50%] (0 min)
1 Pkgs London Ale (White Labs #WLP013) Yeast-Ale
8oz Blackberry Extract

I usually go light on the hops in my beers, and I think this came out pretty good. The only thing I might change is increase the LME to 7lbs and decrease the Black Patent to 1/4lb. I used blackberry extract because I didn't have a secondary fermenter yet. I actually added 2oz to that last gallon in the bottling bucket after I'd bottled 4 gallons of the stout normally. It has a lot of blackberry flavor on the front end, but that gets washed away by the stout quickly and it finishes pretty smoothly. I imagine 2lbs of blackberries would be pretty good, as opposed to the 3lbs+ I'm planning on using for the wit. Hope that helps!