Racking to secondary

So I brewed an ESB this weekend without double checking my schedule to see when I will have time for beer work.

I was hoping to move it to a secondary fermentor after a week in primary but I will be out of town at that point and it might be another 3 -4 days before I'm able to do so.

Are a couple of days really going to make much of a difference?

May I ask why you are doing a secondary all together? Unless you are adding fruit or oak chips or aging for a LONG time for example, most of us just leave it in the primary for 3-4 weeks and package directly from there. Secondary only adds to the chance to pick up an infection or oxidize unless you are doing the stated above.

In short - no. You'll be fine. Many people here debate the utility of racking to secondary period, but certainly 3-4 days will be fine.

My opinion is you'd be better off letting it sit at least those extra 3 days. Most people don't bother with secondary anymore. I only do it when I need to open up a bucket for fermenting and want to dry hop. I think most of the consensus you'll find on here, is to give your beer at least 2 weeks in primary. I have never done any hard science on the subject, but most people here say let sit at least 2 weeks in primary because the yeast still has work to do, cleaning up off flavors, etc. Racking to secondary too early can mess those processes up. So weather or not you decide to move to secondary, I'd wait at least 2 weeks. I usually go 3 before moving a beer out of primary.

When it comes to fermenting beer, don't follow the instructions given most of the time. Figure out if you've reached a final gravity by taking Hydrometer readings. 2 readings the same taken a couple of days apart, says your beer is done fermenting, don't do anything until you know it's done for sure.

To be honest I'm not sure where I heard this but....

I thought that leaving the beer on the yeast cake for too long can produce off flavors.

Am I wrong in this?

Gaviao said:

So I brewed an ESB this weekend without double checking my schedule to see when I will have time for beer work.

I was hoping to move it to a secondary fermentor after a week in primary but I will be out of town at that point and it might be another 3 -4 days before I'm able to do so.

Are a couple of days really going to make much of a difference?

Click to expand...

When you brew by your time schedule you may not be giving the yeast enough time for their work schedule. You could rack to the secondary after a week, but will you have had 2 to 4 days to make sure SG was stable and the fermentation is complete?
Off flavors from the beer being on the yeast cake, for home brewers, is pretty much the old school thought. The idea came from what large breweries had to do. The large amonut of pressure at the bottom of the breweries fermentors could cause yeast autolysis and thus off flavors.

Gaviao said:

To be honest I'm not sure where I heard this but....

I thought that leaving the beer on the yeast cake for too long can produce off flavors.

Am I wrong in this?

Click to expand...

I'm like you in that I'd like to err on the side of caution and rack to secondary (more so for striving to get clear beer.)

However, for the timeframe you're considering it's negligible. I'd bet that I couldn't tell a difference between a beer racked to secondary or not. With dry-hopped IPA's or high gravity brews, I'll definitely continue with secondaries, but my nut brown ale will sit for a month in primary, then straight to keg...

Just leave it in the primary - so much work to properly rack to secondary for negligible benefits...

All that yeast in primary will help it to clean up faster if you leave it in primary. I primary all of my beers 2-4 weeks. 2 weeks for a wheat, 3 for most normal gravity beers, and 4 for the big brews.

If I have a yeast strain that flocs poorly, if dry hopping, if a big beer, or if adding fruit, I will rack to secondary after the 2-4 weeks. You could probably go 6 weeks+ in primary without yeast autolysis (off flavors) under most conditions. 3-4 extra days in primary will only improve your beer IMO.

Good to know. I'll leave that sucker in primary for a couple of weeks then.

Though I have to say that makes me a little worried for my batch before the ESB. I racked it after a week to secondary over strawberries, then a week in secondary before bottling..... no I didn't take a reading which is stupid since I have a hydrometer.

No bottle bombs yet though