Some Fermentation Related Questions

[Slounsberry]

So I've been doing all grain for a few months now, third batch into the fermenter last night, and I have a couple questions I haven't been able to find an answer to yet.

For starters, I should say that I've been making batches of about 3 gallons and bought a 6.5 gallon big mouth bubbler for fermenting. (Can't remember why I did that, but from what I've read it should be ok for primary due to the amount of CO2 pushing out the O2.)

My first question is, despite the fact that my huge headspace in fermenter should be okay as far as O2 is concerned, is it possible it could hurt me where off flavors/aromas are concerned?
My first AG was a wit and it smelled awful during fermentation. From what I understand that's normal for the Belgian wit yeast, but I'm wondering if the contact time and large proportional surface area contact in my setup could have hurt me? That beer got dumped, still not quite sure where the bad tastes came from. Maybe racking to secondary after fermentation slowed to a vessel with a lot less headspace would have helped...? Maybe...?

Second question, somewhat related. I understand the general sentiment these days is that secondary isn't required. Does that apply to not very skilled noobs like me? For example, after racking my beer last night I noticed a lot of trub in the beer. I imagine when I get home and look at it tonight it'll be settled out so I'll get a better idea what I have. Would a situation like that call for secondary, to get the beer off the excessive trub?

And finally, I've been playing with dry-hopping and spicing beers in secondary. If I want to transfer off a gallon of beer for this purpose and bottle the rest, do I need to remove that gallon before fermentation is complete? (By stable FG). If I ferment to stable FG, cold crash, and then transfer a gallon to secondary while bottling the rest, will that be a problem, or am I basically just conditioning it a little at that point?

Thanks! Having a lot of fun so far, moving to AG from small extract batches has been awesome. Bottled a brown ale last week and aside from a very slight green apple/white wine odor the taste was great! Can't wait to crack a bottle of that in a couple weeks

 

[mongoose33]

I doubt your headspace is having much negative impact; yeast needs oxygen at the start, and most if not all of it will be displaced by the O2 which is produced during fermentation.

I haven't had a fermentation yet where I really liked the aromas emanating from the fermenter. And as far as dumping that batch, perhaps you should have waited. Beer that's early in the process is "green" beer; it often smooths out given time. I've had beers that tasted sharp at 2 weeks that were a wonder at 4 weeks. I now generally figure on 3.5-4 weeks before it's kegged and carbonated. It's hard to have such patience when you're new as you just have to test, but now that I have a pipeline built up, including some in bottles or the keezer the same as I'm fermenting....well, I can wait. Really. I can. Usually.

I don't use a secondary any more. I did that for my first three batches then quit doing it. Unless you either A) need to secondary to free up the primary fermenter or B) are aging a very long time (months), I don't see any upside to it.

If you're going to dry hop, I'd wait until the fermentation was complete; if you pull out a gallon before complete, now you need a second fermenter.

 

[Slounsberry]

Thanks!
I did hang onto the first batch for quite a while, I think I tasted it up to 3 or 4 weeks, and there's one bottle left in the fridge just in case but it didn't seem to be mellowing at all. Oh well.

I get that they need O2 and then that they displace it with C02 but my concern is that all those other smells that come off during fermentation are also mixed in with that C02 that's now blanketing the batch.
I think the ultimate test will be to make that Wit again sometime when I feel more comfortable and see if I have the same problem!

And I do have another 1 gallon and 2 gallon fermenter so dry-hopping etc is easy, just wasn't sure when to do it but it sounds like I'm fine with waiting for fermentation to complete!

You're definitely right about needing a pipeline to help my patience! But with one good batch bottle conditioning and a second, hopefully successful, batch fermenting, I hope I'm on my way!

 

[mongoose33]

Don't worry about the smells. My beer never retains them. Further, one reason for leaving the beer on the yeast is so the yeast can clean up off-flavors.

Given the point you're at, two things may help you if you're not already doing them.

One is water. My beer improved significantly when I changed from using my own tap water to having had a Wards report on my water and adjusting the water to improve the mash. My tap water is very hard; a typical strike water might be 1 gallon tap water, 3.5 gallons RO water, and maybe a couple other amendments like CaCL or Lactic Acid or Gypsum. I also use a half Campden tablet to work on the chlorine.

The other is controlling fermentation temperature. The "elegant" way to do this is a fermentation chamber (refrigerator) with some heat source, controlled by something like an Inkbird 308.

Some people just let the beer ferment; the temperature of the wort will rise 5-10 degrees F from the exothermic activity of the yeast. Even if your ambient temp is, say 68F, the actual fermentation temp will be in the low to mid 70s. Not good, generally, unless you're brewing a beer that calls for high fermentation temps.

You can use a swamp cooler which will offset the exothermic effect of the yeast. Put the fermenter in a pan of water, drape a t-shirt over it such that it hangs into the water, and wet it down. The evaporation will get you 5 degrees or more of cooling. You can add things like frozen water bottles to the pan of water, or something I do early in fermentation is to place ice cubes under the t-shirt at the top of the fermenter. As the ice cubes melt, they wet the t-shirt.