First brew!

[mattattack]

Last night I brewed my very first batch! It all went quite well if I do say so myself. For my first brew I chose a nut brown ale, the OG gravity was 1.043. Its bubbling away like crazy right now.. Now how long should I wait until I transfer it to the secondary? I'm completely new to this so any info is greatly appreciated!

 

[susitna4]

Hi mattattack - you don't have to do a secondary. I don't always use on - some people never do some people always do. Be patient. You can keep it in the primary for two to three weeks and I have gotten in the habit of dong that to make sure fermentation is complete. I'd say wait two weeks and do a gravity reading. If it is steady for three to four days - you can bottle, keg or transfer to secondary.

Good luck. And again, be patient. The biggest mistake I made as a beginner was impatience.

 

[mattattack]

Sounds like a good plan of attack! I mainly want to switch to a carboy just to clarify it because right now it is pretty darn cloudy, and I wouldn't mind seeing whats going on in there. Right now my air lock is lettin a bubble out every second if not a tad bit sooner. Should I be worried about some escaping brew?

Thanks for the info so far!

 

[user 53515]

If you let it sit in the primary long enough, it will also clear up.

 

[corbomite]

Should I be worried about some escaping brew?

Only if there is not much headspace above your krausen. Keep an eye on it, if it turns out to be an issue you could switch to a blow-off tube. If you aren't familiar w/ it, heres a link:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter9.html
Hope it tastes great.

 

[brewagentjay]

use of a secondary is a preference thing, so do a search on here for secondary read all the information and decide for yourself if you want to use a secondary or not.

I use a secondary if I can. Sometimes I don't have one free.

 

[breadbohn]

I've recently become a fan of racking after seeing how clear my Kolsch has come out, but for a brown it may not make so much of a difference. However, to answer your original question, if you want to go to secondary, trust the gravity. If it's constant for three days in a row, go for it.

Also, be aware that even after several weeks of conditioning in the secondary, a brown will also condition further in the bottle. I'd say it just keeps getting better and better, but I've never been able to keep them in bottles more than a couple of months.

 

[mattattack]

Yeah It is pretty dark haha, I wouldn't mind just being able to see whats going on ya know? So far its doing pretty well, it smells awesome. I have a sample in a jar with a hole in the lid as kind of a satellite gravity tester if you will.. I read somewhere that it was good to do this. Do any of you use a satellite sample?

On another note its been fermenting for three days now and all the bubbling has stopped.. It at a constant temperature of 70 degrees. Is this common for it to just stop for a bit? Im a little confused

 

[tenchu_11]

One thing you have to get and I learned the hard way is a siphoning tube camp. I bottled my first batch on saturday, it was Brewmasters Dutch lager. Its not fun holding on to the siphoning hose while making sure your bottles aren't overflowing at the same time. Lesson learned