Add water to conditioning carboy?

[Codafisler]

So I took my wort out of the fermenter and put it into a five gallon carboy to condition. But it didn't reach the opening at all. It's about 5-7 inches down from the top. The books I have say there should be as little air as possible during this proses. Should I add water to bring the level up? Or leave it were it is. I can't find anything in my books on this.

 

[RustyHorn]

If you add water you'll lower the ABV and flavour because you'll be watering it down. I think most people just keep it in the fermenter until time for bottling/kegging.

I wouldn't add water. You are at a bigger risk of oxidation, but I'd sit it out, see how it goes, and learn from it for next time.

 

[RustyHorn]

Also, hide it from light rays!

 

[cannman]

Wow

Good job making beer, now let's clear a few things up.

When you move your beer over to secondary, you want to disturb the yeast/trub cake as little as possible so that you leave it behind in the primary. From your photo, it looks like you rocked the hell out of the primary before transfer and probably sucked up a bunch of trub too. Be careful next time, otherwise if you're not going to dry hop or reuse the yeast, just forget about secondary altogether.

I wouldn't top up. Purge with co2 would be best. If you have any fermentation left, the headspace will eventually be purged.

Did you cold crash before transfer by any chance?

 

[Codafisler]

This is my first batch. So I'm learning all the do and donts. I have several books that I'm reading. I didn't cool my wort down very fast after the hot break. I used 4 gallons of almost frozen water but it only brought it down to 105'. I had to let it sit several hours to cool to under 80'. I have since bought a copper/brass wort chiller.i never moved my fermentation bucket. It has sat in my counter for almost 3 weeks. I'm sure my next batch will be better but any help you all offer I will take.

 

[ibrewmyown]

Chilling quickly is a good start. Correct and consistent mash temperature (if you're doing all grain) and keeping a correct (for the yeast type and beer style) and consistent fermentation temperature are just two of the most important things to improve the taste of your beer. Your beer may likely taste just fine leaving it ferment higher with a fluctuating temperature but once you can control you fermentation for the style, you will really be surprised in the taste difference.

Remember, a strong fermentation will increase your wort temperature 10 degrees or possibly more resulting in beer being fermented at a much higher temperature than you thought, greatly affecting the taste.

 

[RM-MN]

This is my first batch. So I'm learning all the do and donts. I have several books that I'm reading. I didn't cool my wort down very fast after the hot break. I used 4 gallons of almost frozen water but it only brought it down to 105'. I had to let it sit several hours to cool to under 80'. I have since bought a copper/brass wort chiller.i never moved my fermentation bucket. It has sat in my counter for almost 3 weeks. I'm sure my next batch will be better but any help you all offer I will take.

By cooling the wort below 180 degrees quickly you kept the hops from adding more bittering than you intended and once the temperature gets below that it won't hurt the beer if it takes a long time to chill. I've done no-chill batches where it took 36 hours to get to pitching temperature and made good beer on a recipe that was designed for no chill.

While I'm sure you learned a lot from reading those books, some of the info in them is outdated. One thing that the books stress is getting the beer off the yeast cake and into secondary. Don't listen to that. The only times you need to move the beer to secondary is for adding fruit, oaking, or long term aging. The rest of the time your beer can stay in primary until you are ready to bottle (with some limitations as a few people have forgotten their beers for a long time). I typically wait 3 to 4 weeks to bottle and have gone as long as 9 weeks with no problems with the beer sitting in primary for the whole time.

 

[Yooper]

The beer is already three weeks old? If so, I'd bottle it to get it out of that carboy with too much headspace. It can condition just fine in the bottle, and will be protected from oxidation.

 

[cannman]

This is my first batch. So I'm learning all the do and donts. I have several books that I'm reading. I didn't cool my wort down very fast after the hot break. I used 4 gallons of almost frozen water but it only brought it down to 105'. I had to let it sit several hours to cool to under 80'. I have since bought a copper/brass wort chiller.i never moved my fermentation bucket. It has sat in my counter for almost 3 weeks. I'm sure my next batch will be better but any help you all offer I will take.

Good stuff.

You 'll discover that there is always some technique to perfect, other ingredients to try, methods to discover. Never give up!