fermenting too fast?

[LloydBrewing]

So, I brewed a red on Saturday, and the bubblies are already starting to die down . Primary fermenter was pretty warm the first 2 days (78*), so I figured that Could be the cause. I put a fan on it to bring it to ~72-73.

Is this going to effect taste? Do I need to rack to the secondary sooner?

Here's the recipe for reference with the only modification being to up the LME to 8lb: http://homebrewhq.com/Recipes/OtherAles.aspx#red_ale

 

[malkore]

78 is very warm...expect some esters in this one.
Leave it in primary 3 weeks, take a gravity reading, and then bottle if you like.

Secondary is often un-necessary (probably more often than not in fact)

 

[LloydBrewing]

yikes.
I got it cooled off fairly quickly (within a day), so here's hoping the 12 hours or so it spent at a higher temp doesn't yield 5 gal of a bad drinking game.

As to the secondary, I've been told and read that this helps keep the yeast from sitting on the krausen too long. That said, I'm bottle conditioning, so...

Basically, why would(n't) you rack to a secondary before bottling?

 

[duboman]

At this point IMO keep the beer on the yeast for 3-4 weeks and give the year a chance to clean up their own off flavors. You'll have to be patient but now you get a better understanding of how important yeast is to the beer.

The yeast, temperature, pitching rate mean everything to how your beer finishes. Let them work, they know what they're doing.

 

[LloydBrewing]

So, leave in the primary for 3-4 weeks, or rack to secondary in a few days and ferment for 3-4 weeks total?

 

[daksin]

Definitely leave it on the yeast for as long as you can stand- especially if it fermented hot (sorry, but the first 2 days are your critical days for temperature control- this one is going to be pretty rough). I'd go at least 4 weeks minimum on the yeast, 6 if it was my beer. It will probably need some more conditioning after that, and may never get to be awesome. Hopefully any weirdness will age out, though.

 

[Genjin]

Agreed! I did the same thing with my first batch. It took a long tome to age for such a simple beer, but it got to where it was yummy. It was about eight weeks in the bottle before it was where it needed to be.

 

[Piratwolf]

So, leave in the primary for 3-4 weeks, or rack to secondary in a few days and ferment for 3-4 weeks total?

When yeast is fermented too warm, as in your case, it produces a lot of by-products from stress and over reproduction. There's evidence that after the fermentation phase, the yeast will retake those by-products, thereby improving the taste of your beer.

The issue of secondary vessels is completely separate. There's much debate here. But taking your beer off the yeast makes it all but impossible for those yeast to clean things up. And autolysis is all but unheard of in home brew before 3-4 months at the earliest.