Rack it again?

[MountainManWannabe]

I had a question about a Belgian Tripel I have in secondary. I can't remember the detailed recipe off the top of my head, but the fermentables included 9 lbs of light DME, 1 lb of honey, and I used a starter with White Labs 570 for the yeast.

I'm fairly new to brewing and haven't started taking hydrometer readings yet. I've mostly just been fermenting things in a bucket for two weeks, racking to a carboy for two or or three weeks, and bottle conditioning for four. It's worked well until now.

I'm thinking I racked this one too early. The day after going into the carboy a thick head of krausen came back about an inch thick. That was two weeks ago. I took a look at it just now while I was in the basement and noticed that the airlock was still slowly but surely bubbling.

I understand that wines are often racked two or three times for clarity. Should I wait until this is clearly done fermenting and then rack it into another carboy for a while, or just bottle it in a few weeks and call it good?

 

[Revvy]

No you don't need to re-rack. ANd yes you racked too soon if it re-krausend. But just leave it alone for a few more weeks. It may or may not be still fermenting it could just be off gassing, but the only way to know is with a hydro-reading.

But if you are just going to leave it for a couple more weeks, it doesn't matter.
It's probably finished.

But it's a big beer, so just let it sit and let the flavors meld, and the yeast settle.

 

[Revvy]

Actually being new to brewing, is especially when you should use your hydrometer, rather than just racking pre-maturely like you did. Don't go by airlock bubbling or by a calender, when you decide to do something like racking, go by your hydrometer.

The only way to truly know what is going on in your fermenter is with your hydrometer. Like I said here in my blog, which I encourage you to read, Think evaluation before action you sure as HELL wouldn't want a doctor to start cutting on you unless he used the proper diagnostic instuments like x-rays first, right? You wouldn't want him to just take a look in your eyes briefly and say "I'm cutting into your chest first thing in the morning." You would want them to use the right diagnostic tools before the slice and dice, right? You'd cry malpractice, I would hope, if they didn't say they were sending you for an MRI and other things before going in....

Thinking about "doing anything" without taking a hydrometer reading is tantamount to the doctor deciding to cut you open without running any diagnostic tests....Taking one look at you and saying, "Yeah I'm going in." You would really want the doctor to use all means to properly diagnose what's going on?