secondary?

[irishwater]

should my air lock be going during the secondary? If not what should I do?

 

[Yooper]

Well, it "shouldn't" be going, because fermentation is finished before moving the beer to the clearing tank. However, sometimes racking it into a new carboy causes some co2 to come out of the beer, and sometimes the yeast will "wake up" a bit and work on the last bit of remaining fermentables. Sometimes weather changes can cause a few bubbles and blurps, too.

So, you really shouldn't expect fermentation to continue but you may be getting a little activity.

 

[Revvy]

Yooper's right, the secondary is used for clearing, fermentation should be done before you rack to the secondary, even though some yeast activity may occur from the mere moving over of the beer.

There are a lot of variables that come into play in terms of the airlock bubbling...You could have for example and bad seal between the grommet (or stopper) and the airlock, or the lid on the bucket isn't fully tight and gas is getting out elsewhere besides the airlock, or the stopper and mouth of the carboy and that would appear slow, while fermentaion is actually occuring rapidly... Or the little bubbler in the airlock could be sitting a little crooked, or become weighted down with tiny co2 bubbles and need to build up a good head of gas before blurping again.

Even having the airlock leaning slightly askew affects it.

The airlock is mainly used to outgass oxygen initially and more importantly co2 (which is of course a byproduct of fermentation), which builds up, so the lid/stopper doesn't blow off....It's done with the liquid in it to keep the system closed, so nothing can get in....

So as you can see airlock activity varies, that's why we say it should not be used a a sign of speed or lack of fermentation.