question about secondary fermentation

[greg75]

I racked a batch of Nut Brown Ale from my primary to a secondary glass carboy Thursday night. Well, last night I looked closely at the bottom of the carboy, and I couldn't believe how much sediment was down there. It was close to an inch thick.

I was under the impression that there wouldn't be much sediment present during secondary fermentation. I thought the whole point of racking was to remove the beer from spent yeast in the primary. I wonder if maybe I siphoned a bunch of sludge into the carboy during racking? I tried to keep away from the bottom 1/2" of the bucket, and there was a lot of sludge left over, so I thought I did that properly.

Then again, maybe this is perfectly normal? I'm just surprised that there's so much present, because the airlock activity is really low, so I can't imagine much going on in terms of fermentation right now.

 

[boo boo]

Normal. As long as you got it off the main yeast cake it should be OK.
A lot of sediment will show on the bottom of your secondary after racking.

 

[greg75]

Normal. As long as you got it off the main yeast cake it should be OK.
A lot of sediment will show on the bottom of your secondary after racking.

Good to know. In fact, every now and then, I can see little particles dropping towards the bottom of the fermenter, leaving a slight trail of bubbles as they fall. Is this spent yeast?

 

[kornkob]

The only real purpose of secondary fermentation is added clarity in your beer. Otherwise, you could certainly leave the beer on the yeast cake in your primary for quite a while before the processes that cause off flavors from the yeast cake have any real effect.

The new sediment you are seeing is just the result of that clarifying process.

 

[Exo]

And your going to see more yeast along the edges than what is near the center. Carboys are not flat on the bottom...at least mine aren't.