too early to rack?

I have a batch in the primary that's been in for almost 3 days. I've got signs of active fermentation and everything seems to be going fine. I just got called away on business out of town and I was going to say screw it and rack it, but my brother is going to come over in a couple days to do it. My question is what would happen if I rack it to the secondary in the middle of primary fermentation?

3 days and you want to rack? You gotta be kidding.

I vote for the longest contact with the primary yeast possible, that's why many of us don't secondary at all...and that's becomming the trend these days.There's been a big shift in brewing consciousness in the last few years where many of us believe that yeast is a good thing, and besides just fermenting the beer, that they are fastidious creatures who go back and clean up any by products created by themselves during fermentation, which may lead to off flavors.

Rather than the yeast being the cause of off flavors, it is now looked at by many of us, that they will if left alone actually remove those off flavors, and make for clearer and cleaner tasting beers.

Many many many of us leave our beers in primary for a month, skip secondary and bottle. We even dry hop in primary, using secondary only if we are adding fruit or oak, or had fruit in primary, like for a pumpkin beer.


If I DO rack to secondary, I wait 14 days, and secondary for another 14, or if lagring, much longer.

Generally speaking kit manufacturers, especially kit an kilo manufacturers, are concerned with selling more and more kits NOT with the brewer making the best beer possible. They know that if they say in the instructions to wait, they may loose some people to hobbies that have more instant gratification.

They also know that the time that a homebrewer will remain buying kits is relatively short...they know that after a few kits, the brewer will either give up, start brewing extract batches from recipes in books and places like this, formulate their own recipes, or go all grain...so they want to sell as many kits as possible to the new brewer before he moves on to bigger and better things.

SO they know that even their beer will taste better if you leave it longer...but they know that in the time you wait you will be reading and learning and be less likely to buy another kit...They can sell three or four kits to you if you follow their directions in the same time frame that listening to us and waiting a month and bottle conditioning for another 3-4 weeks.

But Even Palmer says you should wait....

How To Brew said:

Leaving an ale beer in the primary fermentor for a total of 2-3 weeks (instead of just the one week most canned kits recommend), will provide time for the conditioning reactions and improve the beer. This extra time will also let more sediment settle out before bottling, resulting in a clearer beer and easier pouring. And, three weeks in the primary fermentor is usually not enough time for off-flavors to occur.

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This isn't about waiting for the beer to reach terminal graivty, it's about letting the yeasts clean up all the messes they made while getting your beer to terminal gravity. All those things that could lead to off flavors. You leave the beer in contact with the yeast.

These days leaving my beers in primary for a month I only take 2 gravity reading, one on yeast pitch day and 1 month later on bottling day, that's it.

Even when racking to secondary I wait 14 days, more than likely fermentation was complete in a week, but again I am giving the yeast time to clean up after themselves.

You will find that patience in brewing, IS a virtue. Your beer will thank you for it.

dbreienrk1 said:

I have a batch in the primary that's been in for almost 3 days. I've got signs of active fermentation and everything seems to be going fine. I just got called away on business out of town and I was going to say screw it and rack it, but my brother is going to come over in a couple days to do it. My question is what would happen if I rack it to the secondary in the middle of primary fermentation?

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why are you transferring to a secondary. that is so last year.

Racking, at all, is a risk you don't want to take if you don't have to. I'd skip the secondary. If you feel compelled, at least wait for the krausen to fall to ensure you've got lots of alcohol in there... that will protect the beer during the transfer. Give it at least a week.

Revvy, thanks for that informative post. I'm a relatively new brewer (5 batches) and this topic has been on my mind for the last few hours, because I just racked a batch of stout to a secondary container (PET carboy) and am now worrying I jumped the gun. I brewed it a week ago, with an initial gravity of 1.070. Fermentation got off to a roaring start, filling the ferm lock with krausen by the end of day 2 and cracking it on day 3. I took daily gravity measurements from a "satellite" sample I put in a bottle right after pitching the yeast. I measured 1.024, 1.024, and 1.023 on days 4, 5, and 6, at which point it tasted dry. I concluded that fermentation was mostly or completely finished and racked today. I took a new sample as I was siphoning, and was surprised to see it measure 1.030. Obviously there was a discrepancy between the sample I had been measuring and the rest of the beer, but that's a different discussion (right?). So now I'm less confident that the beer had finished fermenting, and I'm concerned that by pulling it off the yeasty goodness I've made it very difficult for fermentation to complete.

So my questions are:

1. Is there probably enough yeast still in the beer to finish fermentation in a healthy amount of time? If not, what are my options?

2. What would happen if I ignored the gravity readings and just bottled it after a couple of weeks in secondary? Exploding bottles? Higher contamination risk? I like how it tastes a lot right now--it doesn't taste like an incompletely fermented beer at all. If this is how it will taste in bottle, that's totally fine with me. So if the fermentation is in fact incomplete, and, worst case scenario, incapable of completing now, am I risking anything terrible by just ignoring the "problem" and bottling in a couple of weeks?

1) There should be plenty of yeast to finish the job. Many brewers transfer to secondary when fermentation is only 75-80% complete. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

2) You would probably be fine if you wait a few weeks, but why ignore the gravity readings? Checking the gravity is the only way to know for sure what is happening to the beer. If after a few weeks the gravity stays constant over a couple days, you're ok to bottle. The peace of mind not worrying that your bottles will explode is well worth taking a few hydrometer readings.

Revvy you need to save that post, and spend the rest of your life scanning these forums for places you can paste it.

Thanks, Juan. If the ambient temperature is about 62 degrees, any thoughts on how long my beer will take to finish fermenting? The gravity hasn't changed since I racked on Sunday, and I just want to be sure I'm on top of things as far as acting in a timely manner if fermentation is in fact stuck.

Revvy speaks the truth. Montanaanady

+ 1 for letting it sit longer... Besides Revvy, isnt a Jedi for nothing.

You are far enough along though to slowly let the batch warm up a few degrees over the next few days (from mid sixties you say?). Just dont let it cool off too much after the bulk of the fermantation is done. If that happens the yeast will prolly start to floc out and not clean up after themselves as much, then you'll have that good ol green taste that can me mitigated if you let the yeast do their thing.

Good fermentation temps are key, and its better to start cool and slowly warm up over the process, than start warm and cool down. It has made a big difference in my beers since I learned this from John Palmer's book.

whahoppened said:

I took daily gravity measurements from a "satellite" sample I put in a bottle right after pitching the yeast. I measured 1.024, 1.024, and 1.023 on days 4, 5, and 6, at which point it tasted dry.

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Oh boy, I missed this and noone picked up on this.

That "satellite fermenter" idea will only tell you WHAT YOUR BEER WILL FINISH AT, NOT when your 5 gallon batch of beer will be done.

It's used to measure attenuation of the yeast, not rate of fermentation.

It will take yeast a lot less time to chew through 12 ounces of wort than it will 5 gallons.....so don't trust that silly thing that someone came up with because they are too afraid to take samples from their beer as being accurate.

If you do take that as "gospel" you more than likely are rushing your beer off the yeast way to soon. You know "bottle Bombs" or suddenly posting an "is my beer in secondary ruined?" thread because now that you moved it to secondary because the "satellite" said it was done, you now have this scary looking growth that you have never seen in your bucket (because the lid is one) that suddenly grew on top of your wort and is ugly as sin....which we of course will tell you to rdwhahb because that is just krausen and it formed because you racked too soon and the yeast is still trying to work to make beer for you.

The idea came from commercial breweries, but you have to realize when they are using in it a 3 or 7 or 10bbl fermentaion setup, that their sattelite looks like this.



And they are drawing off hydro sample out of that bucket just like we do.

And they are STILL going to be taking readings and tasting the REAL beer in the ACTUAL FERMENTER, before making any determination.

It's been adopted by some home brewers, and unfortunately gets perpetuated by people (mostly noobs scared of taking real hydro readings) but it's about as accurate as airlock bubbling, (and you know where I count that in terms of fermentation gauges- slightly below the astrological calender )

Please don't fear taking a real hydro sample of your beer, don't ever go by a satellite grav reading.....

whahoppened said:

Thanks, Juan. If the ambient temperature is about 62 degrees, any thoughts on how long my beer will take to finish fermenting? The gravity hasn't changed since I racked on Sunday, and I just want to be sure I'm on top of things as far as acting in a timely manner if fermentation is in fact stuck.

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Yeast work on their own schedule, and there are too many factors to be able to say when it will finish. If the SG is significantly high and hasn't changed since Sun, fermentation is very likely stuck. I'd rouse the yeast a little bit and slowly warm it up a few degrees over several days. Since much of the fermentation is over, warming it to 68-70 shouldn't hurt it any as long as the change happens slowly. What yeast did you use? Depending on the strain, 62 may be a little too low. Hopefully that will get the yeast going again.

As mentioned above, for next time if you must use a secondary (which I don't), don't rely on SG readings from anything but the actual beer that's going to get transfered.

I know I'm a little late to post on my own question, I was out of town. Revvy did you read my post? I know it would be horribly wrong to rack a brew after three days, but I WAS GOING OUT OF TOWN. And I had my brother watch it for me. My question was (to anyone who can read [Revvy obviously has given up]) what happens if you rack before primary fermentation has completed? Revvy-I want to learn about brewing, not judge people that do.

I'm pretty new so I'm curious here. If I rack after a week I will still see yeast in the bottom of my secondary. I thought the yeast that flocked out was just dormant on the bottom? Why is the primary better if I still have active yeast in the secondary? I was following the what I was taught when I started, but I am leaving it longer now following advice here.

Revvy said:

That "satellite fermenter" idea will only tell you WHAT YOUR BEER WILL FINISH AT, NOT when your 5 gallon batch of beer will be done.

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This sounds intriguing but it's a little over my head. Could you elaborate?

I never had any delusions that the satellite sample was a precise mirror of what was going on in the fermenter, but I hoped it would at least indicate, in the form of an unmoving number, when fermentation completed or stuck. On my last three batches it worked well in this regard, and incidentally the FG of the "main" beer when I bottled was pretty much identical to the FG of the satellite. Now that I've seen in my current batch how far off it can be, I'm probably going to ditch the method.

Revvy said:

Please don't fear taking a real hydro sample of your beer, don't ever go by a satellite grav reading.....

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Hope you'll excuse my noob-ness here--how exactly does one take a real hydro sample? Direct immersion, or do I need a beer thief or some other tool? Or something I'm not even considering? How often is it sensible to take the readings? Grazie.

@Juan: I used one smack pack of Wyeast 1084. Off the top of my head, I think it likes 64-72 degrees.

In another thread, I described my concern that a single dose of the yeast would have trouble getting started in a 1.070 OG stout wort. Two days into fermentation, with krausen blasting out of the ferm lock, I was no longer worried. At this stage, the fermenter was in a warmer part of my house--I moved it to a colder room to try to calm things down, but now it appears things are too calm. I'm thinking of letting it ride through the weekend (with the heat up a little higher than it has been), then moving it back to the warmer room if nothing's doing by Monday.

dbreienrk1 said:

I know I'm a little late to post on my own question, I was out of town. Revvy did you read my post? I know it would be horribly wrong to rack a brew after three days, but I WAS GOING OUT OF TOWN. And I had my brother watch it for me. My question was (to anyone who can read [Revvy obviously has given up]) what happens if you rack before primary fermentation has completed? Revvy-I want to learn about brewing, not judge people that do.

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So what if you were going out of town....IF you planned to be back in the next 6 months, your beer would have been fine in the primary.

Many folks have left there beer that long with NO problems. Of course it depends on the yeast and the recipe...BUT if you were just going out a twon for a few weeks, you should have left it. And would have found some fantastic beer when you got back.

whahoppened said:

This sounds intriguing but it's a little over my head. Could you elaborate?

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I did in the very next paragraph, I don't think I could have been any clearer.

Revvy said:

It will take yeast a lot less time to chew through 12 ounces of wort than it will 5 gallons.

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In fact more than likely your little satellite will show that IT reached terminal gravity or whatever the attenuation of the yeast is within a couple days, whereas the whole 5 gallons of beer may take 10-12 days to actually finish.

So if on day three "silly brewer" takes a reading of his satellite, it may say that it is finished fermenting, and he racks THE BIG BATCH to secondary he is probably going to have a stuck fermention, because at three days the full fermenter is going to be still pretty high in gravity.

Or even worse, "silly brewer" follows his ridiculous kit instructions which may say "bottle after 1 week" He may end up with.

bottle bombs Not fun whatsoever.

whahoppened said:

Hope you'll excuse my noob-ness here--how exactly does one take a real hydro sample? Direct immersion, or do I need a beer thief or some other tool? Or something I'm not even considering? How often is it sensible to take the readings? Grazie.

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You don't have to take constant readings. If you are doing what many of us are and leaving your beer in primary for a month, then bottling, then you really only need two readings, and that is really if you want to know if you hit your target gravity, and what your alcohol by volume is, and you do that one at bottling time.

If you choose to secondary, which less and less folks are doing, again if you give it sufficient time, and I recommend 14 days after yeast pitch, you could take on to see how close to your target gravity is. Or you could just rack it over.

The only time you really need to take a bunch of readings, is if you are worried about whether or not fermentation is happening. You don't go by airlock readings, anyway...but if you don't trust the yeast then that's when we recommend taking readings....Because that is your ONLY REAL diagnostic tool.

But if you come to realize that unless you pitched your yeast into boiling hot wort, that fermentation is going to happen, and that yeast RARELY doesn't work. In other words if you trust the process. Then you don't really need to take a lot.

Now if you decide that you you just have to secondary and THINK you NEED to do it immediately, then that's when you need to think about multiple readings....that's where the 2 readings over 3 consecutive days idea comes into play.

Now having said that, If using basic sanitization, taking a hydrometer reading is no risk at all. Like others have said there is a layer of co2 that protects your beer, and even taking multiple readings is nothing to worry about.

This is what I use, and it works with both buckets and carboys



And



Here's what I do....

1) With a spray bottle filled with starsan I spray the lid of my bucket, or the mouth of the carboy, including the bung. Then I spray my turkey baster inside and out with sanitize (or dunking it in a container of sanitizer).

2) Open fermenter.

3) Draw Sample

4) fill sample jar (usualy 2-3 turky baster draws

5)Spray bung or lid with sanitizer again

6) Close lid or bung

6) take reading

It is less than 30 seconds from the time the lid is removed until it is closed again.

Probably less if you have help.

And unless a bird swoops down and poops in your fermenter, you wont have any trouble.

And no, you don't dump you hydro samples back in, you drink them. It will give you an idea of how the beer is progressing. But don't sweat how it tastes, it won't taste like the finish product.

I just took a reading from a sample directly out of the carboy and the gravity hasn't budged from 1.030 since racking two weeks ago (OG was 1.070). It's been in a warmer area for about a week. Tried to RDWHAHB but I'm still on edge about this--I really think it tastes "done", and this may well be in my head but I'm starting to detect a faint sour note on the finish that wasn't there before. So I'm really anxious to bottle--like, tomorrow--but I'll obviously be kicking myself many times if all the bottles explode over the weekend. The only alternative I can see is pitching more yeast and/or rousing the yeast by shaking the carboy. How seriously should I be taking the 1.030 number? Helllllpppppp

I know this is an old thread, but I'm interested in the question of what would happen if you rack too early (I'm a microbiology student as well as a newbie homebrewer). Has anyone actually done this and lived to tell the tale?

If the yeast in the sediment are dormant, then they no longer contribute to fermentation. The active yeast left in suspension should do the same job in the secondary as the primary, shouldn't they? Depending on how much unfermented sugar is in the beer at this stage, I would just expect another smaller sediment to form in the second vessel.

Second, is the cleaning up of off flavors and undesirable compounds thought to be true "secondary fermentation", meaning that the substrate being fermented is itself a product of a previous fermentation process? If so, then the same idea would seem to apply--the active yeast still in suspension will do the job. Or is it not fermentation at all, and just reactions between compounds in the suspension and/or at the surface of the sediment? Only in the last case does it make sense (to me) as to why you would want to leave the beer in the primary. (Of course, that doesn't imply that there's a reason to rack, only that it wouldn't hurt anything).

Or is it just a myth that the yeast in the sediment are dormant? Anyone have some insight on this?

Well, I racked one of my batches to early (after 4 days) and ended up with a stuck fermentation. I will forever after heed the wise words of Revvy. In Revvy I trust

This is an old, yet insightful post! I hope no one minds me bumping it.

I have a question in regards to 2.5 and 3 gallon batches. If a satellite will ferment a lot faster than the original 5 gallon batch, then it makes sense that a 2.5/3 gallon batch will ferment faster than a 5 gallon batch, right? Something tells me that this isn't a simple halving of numbers though. Does anyone have insight on fermentation times for half batches? By the sounds of it, it probably is fine to also just leave a 2.5/3 gallon batch to ferment for a month as well.

I am not too worried about my own half (and first) batch of beer. I racked it after 7 days (oops). I tasted it and it tasted sweet and fruity, and I could taste a lot of alcohol. I should have measured the gravity at racking time, but I didn't. OG was 1.054 (Coopers IPA with extra DME). I am just going to let it sit for another 3 weeks in my carboy and hope for the best!

Anyway, thanks Revvy for this information. Single fermentation just seems so much easier, and now that you've enlightened me about single fermentation being a potential good thing, that is what I will do with the remaining half of my kit!

Yeast health, pitching rates, aeration, and temperature have way more of an effect on fermentation time than anything else. Yeast work on their own schedule regardless of the size or shape of the fermenter. Breweries ferment 1/2 bbl test batches for the same length of time as 100 bbl batches, so I really don't think batch size has anything to do with it.

The point of the previous posts is that every fermentation is different, and a satellite fermenter is not an accurate gauge of much of anything. Even splitting a 10 gal batch into two equal sized fermenters, pitching the same yeast, and placing them in the same fermenation chamber will often yeild different fermentation schedules. My experience has been that fermentation times are roughly equivalent between one gal in a growler, 5 gal in a carboy, or 10-12 gal in a sanke. I have noticed that the smaller the batch the more susceptable it is to temperature swings, so the ambient conditions can sometimes speeds up or slow down the schedule of the smaller batches.

I ALWAYS take my hydro sample from the primary( it has a neat little spigot on the bottom to prevent contamination), and ALWAYS wait till FG reaches 1.010 or as close as my patience will allow. Plus it lets me drink the sample and judge the progress. No there isn't any carbonation, but my last weizen has a fantastic flavor even without. You can always mix it will a bud lite 55 to carbonate it since there is no taste to affect the real beer.
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Beer is like sex, and pizza. Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good.

If this thread is still active I'm gonna get bombed on for this. But I rack from open bucket to carboy before krausen falls. I just started using a refractometer but I've been making good batches with no hydrometer for awhile. Measurements don't effect FG.