when to rack to 2nd

[krippendroph]

ok well i have brewed several wonderful brews now. i have always racked to a 2nd ferm. about a week after brewing. the airlock would be about 2-3days settled. well i brewed a high alcy marzen (8.5) and its now day 7 in primary and its still pretty active. (bout every 10sec) can i rack it now or wait till it settles a bit more. by the way first high alch brew. thanks for the responses!

[markaberrant]

You rack to secondary when fermentation is complete. You should really be using gravity readings to do this, but regardless, it sounds like your marzen needs some more time. I give all high gravity beers at least 2 weeks primary.

[dparsons]

What Mark said. Wait til its done with the primary fermentation and then rack.

[HogieWan]

Originally posted by markaberrant
You rack to secondary when fermentation is complete.

it doesn't have to be completely done to go to secondary, some rack when the brew is 2/3 done ferementing

[corkybstewart]

If it's a marzen is it a lager, and if so what's the temperature? Lagers usually take longer to ferment than ales, and high gravity lagers take even longer. As MA stated you really should be using your hydrometer, not bubble watching, especially on bigger beers. Stalled fermentations are more of a problem the higher the OG gets, and if this happens, racking to secondary might not re-start the fermentation. Then, subsequent bottling can produce at best overly sweet beer, at worst very foamy glass grenades.

[markaberrant]

Originally posted by HogieWan
it doesn't have to be completely done to go to secondary, some rack when the brew is 2/3 done ferementing

Sorry, but I can't think of a single reason why someone would want to do this... unless they enjoy incomplete fermentations. Can you elaborate?

[corkybstewart]

I've read that some people do this to get the beer off the trub sooner and that the fermentation will finish in secondary, but I don't buy the reasoning.

[Payson]

Sorry, but I can't think of a single reason why someone would want to do this... unless they enjoy incomplete fermentations. Can you elaborate?

Likewise, seems as if it would defeat the whole purpose of using a secondary. Why would you want to bother transferring if it was just going to sit on more dead yeast?

[markaberrant]

Originally posted by corkybstewart
I've read that some people do this to get the beer off the trub sooner

I've heard this excuse, and it seems to be an over-emphasized concern... I've left beer in primary for 3-4 weeks with no ill effects, and I've heard of others leaving it for 2-3 months.

[corkybstewart]

I brewed a saison back in June and wasn't able to keg it until mid August. It was fine.

[HogieWan]

Originally posted by Payson
Likewise, seems as if it would defeat the whole purpose of using a secondary. Why would you want to bother transferring if it was just going to sit on more dead yeast?

In secondary, it won't sit on dead yeast, but on dormant yeast. When you pitch, a good bit of the yeast is already dead or dying - this is the problem yeast that may autolyse. The yeast floating in the beer fermenting is of little concern as it was recently "born" (budded, really) and can go dormant and lay under your beer for months if not years with no problem. Getting rid the the initial "bad" yeast and break materials is the reason to move to another vessel. The health of the initial pitched yeast will determine how long primary can last. This is why some people have problems after 2 weeks and others report no problems after 2 months.

[Payson]

In secondary, it won't sit on dead yeast, but on dormant yeast.

I was under the impression that the yeast would die when it no longer had anything to eat. First it would start cannibalizing the other yeast..... then eventually die. Interesting.

[HogieWan]

Originally posted by Payson
I was under the impression that the yeast would die when it no longer had anything to eat.

If the yeast died when it ran out of food, you wouldn't be able to buy liquid yeast to ferment your beer - you wouldn't be able to save yeast for another batch

[krippendroph]

my goodness!! only one reply in 2days so i gave up on the thread. check back 4days later and holy debate batman!! well anyway its a lager made with ale yeast after much talk with my homebrew club and the local homebrew shop we decided that my basement temp was not constant enough to lager so we went with ale yeast. and since there were few responses i quit watchin my thread and had yet again a good discussion with my club and it went quite the same as this thread but anyway some said during some said wait 2 weeks so i split it racked it at 10days(tonight) rather cloudly and bitter to taste so i figure thats because its got quite a ways to go yet. not at all what i expected but i know its early and i know how much fun it is to watch our beer change. so now its in the 2nd and there it will sit 3-4 weeks good info all the way around thanks guys!!