Basic Question: Bubbles in Secondary

[doodeyfoodle]

I've had a black and tan in secondary for 7 days, and I can see bubbles rising along the sides of the carboy and gathering at the neck. What does this indicate? Should I wait until these go away to bottle?

 

[cheezydemon]

How long was it in primary, what have the temperatures been, what was the FG before racking etc.

 

[Revvy]

EIther you racked too soon and fermentation wasn't finished, or just the act of racking re-roused the yeast and kicked some fermentation into gear...either way it is normal.

WHat was the grav reading when you racked the beer over?

 

[EvilTOJ]

The best way to check if fermentation is done is to take a hydrometer reading. I've had bubbles going up the sides of the carboy for weeks and weeks, but it was just CO2 coming out of suspension.

What exactly is a black and tan batch? In the glass, that's a mix of a stout and pale ale.

 

[doodeyfoodle]

Thanks for the replies guys - very fast and helpful. The gravity was 1.019 when I racked it to secondary. I guess that might have been a bit high. But would fermentation still be dribbling along one week later? I never noticed any bubbling of the air lock while in secondary.

I think EvilTOJ is correct and its just CO2.

My black and tan is just a blend of stout and amber ale malt extracts.

 

[cheezydemon]

No real harm to it, the beer just won't clear quite as fast.

I never secondary anymore unless I need the yeast cake.

 

[doodeyfoodle]

No real harm to it, the beer just won't clear quite as fast.

I never secondary anymore unless I need the yeast cake.

I was under the impression that leaving the beer in primary with all those dead yeast cells for a long time gives the beer an off-flavour known as "yeast bite". I read that in The Joy of Homebrewing. You don't have any problems with that?

 

[Revvy]

I was under the impression that leaving the beer in primary with all those dead yeast cells for a long time gives the beer an off-flavour known as "yeast bite". I read that in The Joy of Homebrewing. You don't have any problems with that?

The thing is Papazian's book is outdated in a lot of ways...there is new info coming out all the time...(look at the discussion about aerating after fermentation has begun, that came about as of last week's Natl Homebrew Confrence, from Chris White of Whitelabs.)

John Palmer has a different take...

Here's what he has to say in How To Brew.

As a final note on this subject, I should mention that by brewing with healthy yeast in a well-prepared wort, many experienced brewers, myself included, have been able to leave a beer in the primary fermenter for several months without any evidence of autolysis.

The yeast have eaten most all of the easily fermentable sugars and now start to turn their attention elsewhere. The yeast start to work on the heavier sugars like maltotriose. Also, the yeast clean up some of the byproducts they produced during the fast-paced primary phase.

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.

I leave mine in for a month, the are better than when I used to secondary...The yeasts do a great job cleaning up after themselves.

 

[TheFlatline]

Thanks for the replies guys - very fast and helpful. The gravity was 1.019 when I racked it to secondary. I guess that might have been a bit high. But would fermentation still be dribbling along one week later? I never noticed any bubbling of the air lock while in secondary.

I think EvilTOJ is correct and its just CO2.

My black and tan is just a blend of stout and amber ale malt extracts.

If fermentation wasn't finished yet, you could have shocked the yeast and fermentation would have slowed down some.

Beersmith or other brewing software is fantastic. It'll calculate the FG range of your beer as an estimate.

Even then you should go by the lack of change in your hydrometer, not by what number it's at.

That seems to be the biggest newbie mistake, not waiting for the 2-3 days of consistent hydrometer readings.

 

[lessthanhadley]

Not to hijack with my first post on this site, but I had a similar question. Per the instructions that came with my first beginner Hefeweizen I removed the wort from primary after only 3 days which I believe was too soon. Unfortunately I did not take a hydrometer reading for OG, but now after 12 days (3 in primary and 9 in secondary) the airlock still bubbles roughly every 40 seconds and I have a reading of 1.022. The beer also seems fairly sweet. I am guessing that this is because I removed the majority of the yeast too soon. Should I add more yeast or should I wait it out and continue to let it ferment in secondary for as long as need be?

 

[ohiobrewtus]

Not to hijack with my first post on this site, but I had a similar question. Per the instructions that came with my first beginner Hefeweizen I removed the wort from primary after only 3 days which I believe was too soon. Unfortunately I did not take a hydrometer reading for OG, but now after 12 days (3 in primary and 9 in secondary) the airlock still bubbles roughly every 40 seconds and I have a reading of 1.022. The beer also seems fairly sweet. I am guessing that this is because I removed the majority of the yeast too soon. Should I add more yeast or should I wait it out and continue to let it ferment in secondary for as long as need be?

One thing that I think everyone here can agree on is that no one, under any circumstances, should ever be racking anything out of primary after only 3 days.

To the OP, you'll find that everyone does things in their own way around here, and each one of those ways are a perfectly acceptable way of doing things to produce good beer. Don't feel that you have to do things exactly as any one member tells you how they do things. Read how people like to primary/secondary their beers and figure out what your comfortable with and what works best for you. Just because Revvy doesn't use a secondary doesn't mean that you shouldn't use a secondary. Just because I always use a secondary doesn't mean that you should always use a secondary.

Become your own brewer, young grashopper. Now... wax a on.... wax a off. Paint a up... paint a down.

A good rule of thumb to go by is 1 week in primary, 2 weeks in secondary, then 3 weeks in bottles. With wheat beers you can skip secondary altogether and go with 2-3 weeks in primary then straight to bottles.

 

[lessthanhadley]

I got that and that was what I thought was the case but I followed the directions from what I thought to be a very reputable home brew shop. As far as the situation with my current brew, what would one recommend?

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

I'd leave it in there for another couple of weeks. Try your best not to do anything at all to it, and it should be fine.
It's most likely that (as you've figured out) the fermentation wasn't done when you racked. Now the fermentation is continuing with the yeast that was transfered. Since that's a dramatically smaller portion of yeast, It's going to take longer to finish fermenting. There's not really anything that can be done to accelerate it. I wouldn't reccomend

 

[lessthanhadley]

This may sound crazy, but would the addition of a new yeast packet or part of one be helpful in speeding up the process or would this create more issues?

 

[TheFlatline]

Not to hijack with my first post on this site, but I had a similar question. Per the instructions that came with my first beginner Hefeweizen I removed the wort from primary after only 3 days which I believe was too soon. Unfortunately I did not take a hydrometer reading for OG, but now after 12 days (3 in primary and 9 in secondary) the airlock still bubbles roughly every 40 seconds and I have a reading of 1.022. The beer also seems fairly sweet. I am guessing that this is because I removed the majority of the yeast too soon. Should I add more yeast or should I wait it out and continue to let it ferment in secondary for as long as need be?

According to the style notes from Beersmith, you need to drop anywhere from 8-12 more points. Give it a few weeks.

My rule of thumb is that if there's significant airlock activity (more than a bubble a minute is significant) don't even bother taking a hydrometer reading. Even if airlock activity stops within a few days, I always wait at least a week in the primary just to make sure it's not a leak in my bucket or whatnot.

Don't bother pitching yeast. You should have enough (especially with a hef) to finish the job. Weizens are nice because they're supposed to be fruity and have lots of flavors in them, so if your yeasties go nuts and reproduce some more you're not going to have as likely of icky flavors as with other beers.

However, take the advice on the board and skip the secondary. Weizens are supposed to be cloudy (and even yeasty, as the "traditional" way to drink it is to stir up the sediment for that extra flavor!) and the secondary is usually a clarifying/aging tank as opposed to a fermenter.