Too early to transfer to secondary? I need the fermentor..

[dawn_kiebawls]

I know there are 1,000s of posts on here where people are worried about transferring too early or too late but all the ones I was willing to read through were for clean beers with different goals in mind.

I brewed a Flanders Red on 9/8/20. Krausen has dropped, it's starting to settle and the airlock has slowed considerably (I know, I know..it's just an observation. I haven't taken a gravity yet). The problem I'm running into is that I need the BetterBottle it's currently occupying for a Funky Rye Saison I'm hoping to have on tap for Halloween.

In a normal scenario (clean beer, etc) I'm aware that secondaries are unnecessary and 8 days is much too soon to rack anyway. But, since this one is destined for a dark corner for 12+ months does it matter if I transfer this early? I imagine there would be more than enough Brett, Lacto, Pedio in suspension that would get transferred to do its job, or I could just transfer some of the trub along with it.

Maybe it would even be beneficial to transfer early as it will likely produce it's own protective CO2 barrier?

As always, thanks for taking the time to help me out and shed some light on the situation. Cheers!

 

[sweetcell]

so it's about a week old, and primary is slowing time? that's a perfect time to transfer. as you noted, a low level of activity provides some protection to the beer: CO2, and active fermentation that can take up any oxygen that is picked up in the transfer. there will indeed be a lot of bugs in suspension.

what yeast/bug mix did you use?

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

what yeast/bug mix did you use?

Thanks for the response and confirming what I was thinking. I will try and get it transferred tonight right before bed. I hit this batch with a straight pitch of ECY BugCountry, with plenty more dregs to follow. I'll likely lose some of the malty profile from a Flanders by not using a Flemish blend or Roselare but I have quite a few ECY vials I need to use up.

 

[cactusgarrett]

Transfer away. I'm a big proponent of transferring sours to their aging vessels with some points left to go in primary fermentation, as sweetcell suggested, to scrub the oxygen out with continued fermentation.

 

[sweetcell]

I hit this batch with a straight pitch of ECY BugCountry, with plenty more dregs to follow.

if you pitched BugCounty then there'll be plenty of bugs in your beer, no worries there. great blend.

not sure you need dregs. they can't hurt, but BC will easily take care of business on its own so don't feel obligated.

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

Well, I went ahead and added the dregs from a bottle of something by Jester King last night. I really wanted this to be just a straight pitch of ECY to see what it was capable of but I couldn't let a fresh dose of dregs go to waste. Plus, my only other carboy of sour already had 3 rounds of dregs added to it and I didn't want the new batch to feel left out. Thanks again for all the help!