Can you handle it secondary... can you?

[spie0092]

I put together a Belgian Dubbel last Friday and it has been bubbling away like crazy up until yeasterday. It slowed significantly, which seems about right as the fourth day is usually peak yeast population, but I just wanted to know if I should send it over to the secondary today or wait until tomorrow for the full week.


At peak rate it was coming out of the airlock about once a second. Now I would say it is about once every 35-45 seconds this morning. Is it going to make a significant difference to wait another day? I know patience is key, but I have also read that leaving it to steep in yeast for too long can be detrimental.


Anyway, not an emergency, just wanted to know peoples thoughts and how they handle when to transfer over to the secondary. Is it strictly time based, or do you wait for a certain airlock frequency?

Here is a pic for fun (I think this was Saturday morning; just starting to push air out at a steady frequency):

 

[rdwj]

If it's still bubbling, I'd leave it beyond the week. It's not going to hurt anything

 

[WOP31]

Have to agree with the other posts, just because the airlock stops doesn't mean nothing is going on. If you can you should take a gravity reading, that will tell you if it is done fermenting.

Cheers

 

[david_42]

In all my years of homebrewing, I have heard of exactly ONE case of autolyse (dead yeast from leaving it too long, ~4 months). Leave your batch in the fermenter until it reaches the final gravity or has stopped bubbling.