Racking to "secondar" before / during fermentation

[HibsMax]

I brewed a Dos Equis clone a couple of days ago (no visible signs of fermentation but that's not my issue). I have my fermentation bucket sitting in a trash can of water. I want to rack this to a 5 gallon glass carboy and put that in a modified rubbermaid 10-gallon cooler. I should be able to control the temperature much better in that. Has anyone ever racked a beer to a secondary before / during fermentation? For most of my other brews I leave it untouched in the primary until it's time to take some gravity readings but that is at least after 2 weeks. Will I harm my beer by transporting it to another fermenter this early on in the process - possible during fermentation startup?

 

[duboman]

At this point I would keep it where it is , the trash can water should do a pretty good job maintaining a pretty consistent temperature and the risks of oxidizing the beer or introducing an infection in the transfer are a bigger risk than the degree or two of temp IMO.

BTW, at what temp is the primary sitting at now, as long as you are within the range of the yeast all is good!

 

[helibrewer]

Are you using a lager yeast? What temp is it fermenting at now? You might need a diacetyl rest in which case you need that yeast cake working for you...I wouldn't rack a lager early.

 

[HibsMax]

I am using a lager yeast - Wyeast 2206 (Bavarian Lager Yeast). The water temp in the fermentation bucket is at 58 F so a little on the high side, need to add more ice packs. The cooler solution I was talking about above would require less water so it should be easier to keep cool, plus the cooler has a lid which will further help insulation (there will be a hole in the top for the airlock).

I am going to go ahead and continue modifying the cooler but I won't move this lager right now. I may rack to a secondary after a couple of weeks and then I will swap out the trash can.

Cheers!

 

[helibrewer]

58 is right where you want to be for diacetyl rest, hopefully your fermentation went ok at that temp and the diacetyl will be cleaned up (buttery taste).

Rack once you reach FG and cool as much as you can, ideally below 40F for about a month

 

[HibsMax]

I'm not at the stage of the diacetyl rest...at least I don't think I am. The beer has only been in the primary for about 48 hours and during that time I haven't seen any signs of fermentation...but I am not worried about that for all the reasons mentioned in the other "what has happened to my fermentation" threads. So I am not concerned about that.

What I was wanting to know is if anyone has any experience of moving a beer / lager *during* the fermentation process. The only reason I am suggesting doing that was to move from one fermentation system to another - one that hopefully offers me more control over the fermentation temperature. Just for the record, I ain't moving anything, I'm going to wait.

Here is a picture of what I am going to start using for my lagers from now on :
http://www.bodoin.com/myimages/beer/lager_fermentation_chamber.jpg

EDIT : sorry about the orientation of the picture. I am a relative new Mac user and when I preview the photo it looks OK but when I upload it and view it in a webpage it's 90 degress out of whack. Ugh.