question of when to rack

I was about to rack to secondary and thought what the heck... The airlock is still bubbling every 4 seconds. I made this brew a week ago today. I'm anxious to free up the fermenter to start a new batch in this one. My question is... Does the yeast need more time in the primary or would it be OK to rack to secondary now?

og 1.051
as of now its 1.014

The best answer is 'the yeast needs as long as it needs.' Since you've checked the gravity today, check it again in 2 days and see if it has changed. If it is the same, go ahead and rack. If it is different, check it again 2 days later and repeat as necessary.

It would be better to hold off brewing and make sure your beer is going to be great than start another batch before this one is ready. Of course if you want the best of both worlds, go buy another bucket.

Thanks for the quick reply,

I was thinking someone would say to double check the gravity later to make sure it was the same. So that means there is a certain amount of yeast that must drop out before its ready for secondary. Knowing when to rack is a matter of knowing when the yeast population has died down cause there's no more fermentables. The gravity measured at the end of primary is made of the unfermentables left in the beer that the yeast cannot convert to CO2 and alcohol.

However, there is still yeast in a secondary fermenter to react with the priming sugar when bottling. The yeast in the secondary isn't doing much but its not going away either. Does this all sound right more or less?

Sort of. The hydrometer isn't measuring the amount of yeast in the beer, it is measuring the amount of sugar left in it. A byproduct of less fermentable sugars is that the yeast start to flocculate (drop to the bottom). So visually that is correct. And yes there will be plenty of yeast to bottle condition unless you secondary for many months.

Assuming attenuation is 75% then it's time to rack when the brew hits .012.

so its reading 1.014 again today, gonna rack tomorrow.

thanks for the replies