no action in secondary..

Powderhoundin · Mar 11, 2006

Hi All..

I'm in the middle of my second batch of Brew. I started my batch in a food grade, airtight bucket, and after the krausen fell (after 3 days), transferred it to a glass carboy with an airlock for the second stage, and topped up the carboy with clean water to within 2 inches of the stopper..

Now I seem to be running into trouble.. I made the transfer last night, and it's been about 18 hours, and there hasn't been a single bubble in the airlock yet.. There does seem to be something going on in there, every once in a while a some small bubbles seem to float up from the depths of the carboy.

Is there something going on here that I should be worried about, or does it take a couple days for the yeast to kick back in?...

:mug:

Lou · Mar 11, 2006

you probably won't see more than a few bubbles in the several weeks you have it in the secondary...it's done fermenting now. the flavors are "melding" and the yeast and other crap is settling to the bottom -- that's the purpose of the secondary "fermentation"

also, topping up in the secondary is not necessary or recommended -- you're just diluting your beer at that point.

SteveM · Mar 11, 2006

While there is a lot of flex in this for personal preference and schedules (sometimes we do what we can, when we can), most people will allow a full week in the primary, followed by two weeks in the secondary. If you don't use a secondary, the two weeks in the primary and straight to bottle is common.

Genghis77 · Mar 11, 2006

After the first week, most of the action is traub settling out.

david_42 · Mar 11, 2006

If you see action in the secondary, you probably racked too soon. The secondary is for settling and dry hopping.

Mikey · Mar 12, 2006

Years ago, the terminolgy 'secondary fermentor' was used, meaning the second fermenting vessel the beer was put in.

Somehow the words got changed to 'secondary fermentation' which makes people think that the beer will ferment for a second time. It ain't so.