Am I ready for secondary fermentation

[silver02ws6]

Ok I brewed my Fat Tire clone a week ago today. Made a starter for it and it was a very vigorous fermentation for the first 4 days. Over the past couple I can tell it is settling down. There are still some tiny bubbles being produced but the airlock has stopped moving.

Can I move to a secondary since I am going to be gone over the next four days or is it too soon since there are still some tiny bubbles being produced inside the carboy?

Thanks for the advice in advance!

 

[permo]

I would bet that the bubbles are just dissoved C02 escaping from your brew. It is very unusual for ales to take longer than 2 weeks to ferment, especially if you used a starter and held it at the proper temperature.

Take a hydromter reading and if you nearing your final gravity estimate then you are ready for secondary.

However, in an ale like a fat tire clone, I would go ahead and just bottle it after two weeks in primary. There really isn't any reason to secondary a run of the mill ale that I can think of. I like to use secondary for lagering, dry hopping and bulk aging of heavy ales. I recently brewed up a nut brown using nottingham yeast, I let it sit on primary at 63 degrees for a little over two weeks then I bottled it. It was one of my clearest and cleanest beers to date.

Too be honest, I am starting to do some dry hopping in primary too. One week of vigorous fermentation, open the lid throw in the dry hops, let it sit for another week and bottle it.

 

[Bulls Beers]

I leave most of mine for 2-3 weeks in the primary. Take a hydrometer reading first to see if it has finished..

 

[silver02ws6]

If its fine to leave it in the primary for the next week then I will let it sit. Not to concerned with how clear it is as opposed to how good it taste.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Revvy]

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.

You'll find that a great many folks, maybe even the majority on here these days, leave their beers in primary for 3-4 weeks, skipping secondary. Many of us even dry hop in primary, and only rack to secondary if we are adding oak or fruit, or had fruit in the boil or primary and left lots of trub behind.

Even John Palmer talks about this in How To Bew;

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.

 

[silver02ws6]

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.

You'll find that a great many folks, maybe even the majority on here these days, leave their beers in primary for 3-4 weeks, skipping secondary. Many of us even dry hop in primary, and only rack to secondary if we are adding oak or fruit, or had fruit in the boil or primary and left lots of trub behind.

Even John Palmer talks about this in How To Bew;

If this is the case then I have an empty carboy and may need to brew my Ruination IPA clone today :rockin:

 

[silver02ws6]

The ruination clone is boiling as we speak. Thanks for the help everyone!