Secondary and room

[JRChase]

Noob question, this weekend I brewed my first batch (Dead Ringer IPA Northern Brewer extract kit). In short I was a dummy and read my hydrometer wrong, and ended up adding more water than I should.

Within 18 hours it was fermenting and rolling, in 24 hours I was scrambling to put in a blow off hose but caught it in time.

I am sure this was because I didn't have enough room in my primary (6.5 gallon carboy)due to the extra volume.

My question is how much room should I leave in my secondary when I rack it? Is all the hot and exciting action over with at that point, or do I need to worry about blow over?

 

[Shaneoco1981]

You want as little head room as possible. That's why secondary carboy's are only 5 gallons. All the action is done, so the production of CO2 is all done as well. Hence there isn't a nice layer of CO2 protecting the beer from oxidizing if you have to much head room.

 

[JRChase]

Thanks for the reply, I should have no shortage of volume to fill it then. Hopefully the lower o.g. will not impact the final product much.

I am new to this, but from what I have seen in vids and pics there is a ton of fermentation going on. The blow off tube is bubbling more that a pipe at a college party.

 

[Yooper]

Thanks for the reply, I should have no shortage of volume to fill it then. Hopefully the lower o.g. will not impact the final product much.

I am new to this, but from what I have seen in vids and pics there is a ton of fermentation going on. The blow off tube is bubbling more that a pipe at a college party.

It sounds ok.

The only thing I'd say to watch is the temperature of the beer. Actively fermenting beer can get hot really fast, as much as 10-12 degrees warmer than room temperature! And the warmer it gets, the more the yeast go crazy and produce more heat. And the fermentation gets warmer, so the yeast go crazier. It can be pretty hot in the fermenter as a result. If you have a stick on thermometer, keep an eye on the temperature and do your best to keep it under 70 degrees. A cheap aquarium thermometer works also. If it gets too hot, you can stick the fermenter in a water bath to try to cool it down a bit.

 

[sweetcell]

My question is how much room should I leave in my secondary when I rack it? Is all the hot and exciting action over with at that point, or do I need to worry about blow over?

1) you should be able to fill your secondary very near to the top, because you shouldn't transfer to secondary until primary fermentation is over. there should be little to no sugars left for the yeasties to party on, so nothing to blow over. sometimes the extra oxygen introduced during transfer can kick things up momentarily but that action should subside quickly if you've waited long enough. which brings us to:

2) for the majority of beers, you don't need to secondary. if you're fermenting less than a month you're probably better off leaving it in primary until bottling/kegging. transferring to secondary = additional risks of infection and oxygenation. there is little benefit unless you're adding fruit or going to bulk-age it for a long time.

 

[JRChase]

Thanks all

That helps me understand the secondary better. I do need to secondary this one as it has a hop addition to the secondary.

As far as temp the fermometer on the side of the bottle is reading 64 - 66 usually, so I think I am good.

 

[wilsojos]

A lot of folks even add hops to the primary. I will be brewing my first batch with a hop addition and I plan to put the hops in my secondary and siphon the wort on top of them. Eventually I will experiment with adding them to primary, but not my first time.

 

[JRChase]

Thanks all

I am using hop pellets for my hop addition to my secondary, do i just drop them in, or is there more to it?

 

[bleme]

You can drop them in, or put them in a hop bag, or use a hop tea. The great thing about brewing is that the options are endless!