Ok, so today I racked my IPA to secondary. I made a batch of red ale and an IPA at the same time so racked both of em today and dry-hopped my IPA.
They're both pretty big, they both started out with an OG of around 1.07-1.072. The red ale looked great, pretty clear, smells good and the gravity at the moment is 1.022. All good on the red ale front!
With the IPA though, we used WLP051 California Ale V yeast. We didn't make a starter the day before, as we forgot (oops!), but we tried to make one an hour before pitching it. IPA was slow to begin fermentation, about 2 days before any activity was seen. It had slowed down before racking to secodary there. So it had been in primary for 10 days. During primary, there was a very strong smell of bananas coming from the beer, even though fermentation temp was actually quite low (18 degrees celsius). The beer is very cloudy and also the gravityreading is around 1.032. The expected final gravity is around 1.018. The beer also tasted kind of banana-y.
So, did we rack to secondary too early? Will the banana smell/taste clear up? Will it become less cloudy? How long should we leave it before bottling?!
Sorry for so many questions, we're pretty new and confused! Also, we're entering the beers in a competition on March 5th. We were hoping to bottle the red on Sunday, giving it 2 weeks for carbonation. Would we be ok to bottle a few IPAs too so they're carbnated for competition time? I presume we're going to have to leave it for a while longer in secondary before bottling the entire thing, but what do you think would happen if we bottled a few on Sunday?!
They're both pretty big, they both started out with an OG of around 1.07-1.072. The red ale looked great, pretty clear, smells good and the gravity at the moment is 1.022. All good on the red ale front!
With the IPA though, we used WLP051 California Ale V yeast. We didn't make a starter the day before, as we forgot (oops!), but we tried to make one an hour before pitching it. IPA was slow to begin fermentation, about 2 days before any activity was seen. It had slowed down before racking to secodary there. So it had been in primary for 10 days. During primary, there was a very strong smell of bananas coming from the beer, even though fermentation temp was actually quite low (18 degrees celsius). The beer is very cloudy and also the gravityreading is around 1.032. The expected final gravity is around 1.018. The beer also tasted kind of banana-y.
So, did we rack to secondary too early? Will the banana smell/taste clear up? Will it become less cloudy? How long should we leave it before bottling?!
Sorry for so many questions, we're pretty new and confused! Also, we're entering the beers in a competition on March 5th. We were hoping to bottle the red on Sunday, giving it 2 weeks for carbonation. Would we be ok to bottle a few IPAs too so they're carbnated for competition time? I presume we're going to have to leave it for a while longer in secondary before bottling the entire thing, but what do you think would happen if we bottled a few on Sunday?!
