Question about first batch of homebrew...

[fretlessman71]

My fermenting has slowed to a two-bubble shot every 7 seconds. Is this the right time, or is there a really good way to tell when it's time to bottle?

Also, would it be necessary to do a secondary fermtation on this extract porter? What is the purpose of doing one, and if I did indeed impart some off flavors due to my failure to sanitize properly, is there any way that a secondary can save it?

I know I'm just supposed to relax and have a homebrew, but I really don't want to just chalk this batch up to experience... I want some porter for Christmas!

[frspinale]

How long has it been in the primary? It doesn't sound like it is finnished yet. 2 bubbles every 7 seconds sound pretty active to me. I'm guessing it's been going for about 5-7 days?

If you are NOT doing a secondary let it go longer. If you ARE doing a secondary, now sounds like a good time to rack it over.

Don't worry about it, you will be drinking porter for xmas.

[frspinale]

Oops. I didn't answer all of your questions.

1) Is this the right time, or is there a really good way to tell when it's time to bottle?

It sounds like it is too active to bottle. I would wait at least 2 weeks if you are not doing a secondary.

2) Also, would it be necessary to do a secondary fermtation on this extract porter? What is the purpose of doing one, and if I did indeed impart some off flavors due to my failure to sanitize properly, is there any way that a secondary can save it?

Not necessary but if you have the equipment then I would recommend it. It will give you a clearer, cleaner beer. A secondary removes the beer from the the trub (the sediment on the bottom) which over time can ipart off flavors to your beer. And it allows the yeast and particles still in suspension to settle out. Leaving a much clearer beer.

If you have an infection due to not sanitizing correctly a secondary will not help. The damage I'm afraid is already done. But this is very unlikely. I've made around 200 batches in the last 10 years and I've only had 2 go bad. One because I obviously didn't clean the bottles well enough and the other one I'm still not sure what went wrong.

3) I know I'm just supposed to relax and have a homebrew,

EXACTLY. Not only will you have beer by xmas but I bet it turns out great! You may want to start your second batch as soon as you free up your equipment. Your going to want more beer when this batch runs out.

[fretlessman71]

Ok.. so, we did this on Wednesday, and it's one of those extract kits...

Somewhere in the directions it says that after it starts fermenting you're looking at about 72 hours before it's ready to slow down and be bottled. So here it is, 4 days later, and this morning the bubbles have slowed to 18 seconds between. I'll get 2 or 3 really fast bubbles, and then the 18 second wait.

I guess what I'm afraid of is that I'm leaving town for 5 days over the Thanksgiving holiday, and I'm afraid to come back to ruined beer. If I don't do this tonight or tomorrow, I won't be able to bottle until the 31st. So now what?

If I were to do a 2ndary, would I have to repitch yeast and add sugar all over again?

I've got a second 6 gal. bucket to do this with, I guess. I used the one with the spigot at the bottom; I'm assuming that it's there if I want to do a secondary. Do I just sterilize the new bucket, transfer the beer via spigot, and then put the lid on the new bucket? Is it really that simple?

How long is too long to wait to do anything? It seems like the fermenting is slowing down considerably.

Thanks, frspinale, for being so complete in your answers!

[fuji6100]

72 hours just sounds WAY too fast to bottle. You will surely get exploding glass grenades if you bottle when it is still having such activity. Remeber, there is not "set in stone" time-table for beer. Each person's beer ferments in its own time based on temperature, yeast cell count, gravity of the beer, and how you hold your tongue when you brew :P

Wait until it slows down a little more... as far as leaving it, you could probably leave it in a primary for 3-4 weeks with no problems. Any amount of time after that, and you would probably want a secondary. You can leave in in your secondary for months. It will only get better and better as it conditions in the secondary. It is a sterile environment, so it won't ruin.

[frspinale]

The bucket with the spigot is your bottleing bucket not your primary fermenter. This is not really a problem but DO NOT try to transfer your primary out thru the spigot. There will be abour 2 inches of trub on the bottom of the bucket and it will not only clog your spigot but the purpose of racking (siphoning) the beer from the top is to separate it and leave this trub behind.

If you do "rack" to a secondary you do not add anything to the beer att this point. The only time you should have to add priming sugar is just prior to bottleing. You do not need to repitch yeast. Just gently mix in your priming solution prior about 10 minutes before bottleing. You are going to want to use your bucket with the spigot to do the bottleing. So, if you are in that bucket now I would recommend:
1st- rack to secondary (make sure everything is sanitized)
2nd- in about a week or so rack back into your bucket with the spigot and and priming sugar solution and bottle. Connect your bottle filler up to the the spigot and counter-fill you bottles.

I guess the most important thing here is to NOT transfer via the spigot. Whether or not you choose to do a secondary (highly recommended) or not, you want to be sure to rack you beer between containers. That spigot is there only for bottling.

During fermentaion solids settle out of the beer as you will see when you rack the beer in to the secondary. These solids will clog that spigot.

And should you choose not to do a secondary, leaving it in the primary until after the holidays is fine. At 4 days you are not ready to go into the bottle yet. The beer will be fine. Just remember RACK IT dont use the spigot.

Also, Im getting the impression that you have already added your priming sugar? If this is true you are going to need to get more prior to bottleing. This won't ruin the beer or make it undrinkable, in fact it'll probably just add alcohol and the beer will finnish a little drier. But for future reference, you add the sugar prior to bottleing to reactivate the yeast that is already in suspension in the beer to provide carbonation in the bottle. You don't add it when you pitch the yeast.

[fretlessman71]

Originally posted by frspinale
So, if you are in that bucket now I would recommend:
1st- rack to secondary (make sure everything is sanitized)
2nd- in about a week or so rack back into your bucket with the spigot and and priming sugar solution and bottle. Connect your bottle filler up to the the spigot and counter-fill you bottles.



Last question, I hope....

What's a good rule of thumb to know when I should transfer to secondary? Am I ready to do that right now?

[frspinale]

As mentioned by fuji above there is no set in stone time table but a good rule of thumb would be 5-7 days in primary (the higher the gravity the longer in primary) and 1 week to month in the secondary. For an extract kit I would say 5-7 days primary and 1 week secondary and 2 weeks in the bottle and you should be ready drink.

In your case I would leave it till you get back. Next weekend put it in the secondary and then the following weekend bottle it. That will have you drinking by xmas.

I also edited the post above with additional info about priming.

[fretlessman71]

Thankfully, that's one mistake I DIDN'T make. ;) I still have my packet of priming sugar fully intact and ready to go. I just figured that if repitching was necessary, the yeast would need something else to eat before the alcohol killed it off. Guess I still have some learning to do, don't I?

Thanks again! I'll leave that batch alone for now... and off to work I go!

[frspinale]

The yeast do need something to eat. That is why you are adding the priming sugar. But they are still alive.

Enjoy that tasty porter! It'll be fine.

[toneyc]

Hey, Fret,

I am a weekend brewer. I brew on a Saturday or a Sunday. A week later, if the re is no foam on top of the beer, I transfer to secondary. If there is foam, I make a decision to xfer or not, mostly based on how lazy I am that day. So it either sits in the primary another week or it sits in the secondary for a week. Since most of my beers are in the 4-5% range, it usually is a week each in the primary and secondary. If the beer isn't as clear as I want it or if I don't have room in the fridge for it, it will sit in the secondary for another week or two. So it will be fine if you xfer it to secondary and leave it over Thanksgiving and bottle it when you get back. If it is cold where you live, don't turn off the heater when you leave. I did that with my second batch. Fermentation wasn't finished. I left for a week with the heater off over Christmas then came back and bottled the beer. Cold, carbonated wort, ick. Way too sweet to drink.

:)
Toney.

[Tweek]

In my experience a good rule of thumb has been never longer than 7 days (of fermentation) in the primary, after that off flavors start happening. If you still have the chance I would rack to your secondary now and let it finish up while you are gone. Once you get back it should be ready to rack again and bottle. Just my 2c.

[GunNut76]

My HG Irish Ale was in the fermenter for 16 days and I had no airlock activity so I bottled...could have used another couple of days in the fermenters...if you bottle too early you will have too much yeast in suspention and you WILL get bottle bombs...I did...on the plus side the brew is tasty, yours will be tasty too frettless.

[BigRed]

You said its only been fermenting since Wednesday? If you bottle it now, it will splode on ya, and you very much WONT have any homebrew for Christmas if that happens. Let it sit till next Wednesday in primary, and then transfer it to secondary and let it sit for another 2 weeks. You could probably bottle sometime during the second week of December and have two weeks for it to sit and carbonate in your bottles. You should be able to pop one open on Christmas and have a nicely carbonated beer.

[fretlessman71]

This is SO COOL.... I LOVE having people help me out like this!

OK, so I'm waiting to bottle. Since everyone here is interested in giving their $0.02 worth (and believe me, this is more welcome than you can imagine), let's change the direction of the thread.

Two questions:

1) We leave Tuesday and return Saturday night late. This has been fermenting since Wednesday afternoon; I began to see bubbles Thursday morning. Right now there's a burst of bubbles in the lock every 25 seconds or so. Should I rack to secondary Monday night, or Sunday night when I get home from work?

2) Is there a disadvantage to racking to 2ndary too soon? How soon is too soon?

Thanks again guys! This is the coolest!

[GunNut76]

If it has been over a week in primary you should be able to rack into secondary IMHO. IIRC if you rack too early you remove the beer from the yeast cake and your FG will be higher than expected...need verification on this one.

[frspinale]

My .02 cents is still leave it in the primary till you get back. be sure to leave your heat on if you live in a cold climate. ( i think someone may have mentioned this earlier in this thread) Then rack to secondary for at least a week and then bottle whenever your ready. be sure to sanitize everything when you do this especially the bottles and caps.

[Jughead]

The longer you leave it in the primary, the more gunk falls out of it. So if you transfer too early, you end up transferring some gunk to the secondary. Transferring too late runs the risk of off flavors from sitting on the gunk too long. It's a trade off between removing lots of gunk, and getting the beer off the gunk as soon as possible.

Someone jump in here if I'm wrong.

[fretlessman71]

I lifted the lid to the airlock so I could have a whiff... I smell a wine-y aroma coupled with bready yeast. I know the porter is in there somewhere, but all in all it smells pretty dang good!

was i bad?

[GunNut76]

No fretless you are fine...I checked my first batch about once a day till I bottled it and had no ill effects. It has been said before and I'll say it again...RDWHAHB and If you don't have a homebrew go buy a good brew!

[fretlessman71]

Drinking a Guinness Extra Stout as we speak... just about to try it with Oreos, as I've heard is a special treat of several denizens of this site. Looks like I'm going to transfer it to secondary when I get back from the trip, and I WON'T forget to sanitize that bucket this time! Thanks everyone!

[paul84043]

Fretless,
I'm in Tony's camp, I brew typically on the "week" schedule.
I do all of my primaries in a 6.5 gal carboy, I wait until the kreusen falls and activity slows down to more than about 20 seconds between bubbles. Luckily, this usually happens in about a week. I have only had a few higher gravity batches go longer than that.
I transfer to the secondary (5 gallon carboys) and don't really worry too much about being super careful not to bring over extra stuff. It all falls out eventually.
Then it sits for another week, I take a gravity reading, and wait another few days to a week. If the reading is stable, I bottle, or whatever.
There are alot of opinions that leaving the beer in the secondary longer improves it faster than it would in bottles.
You will not harm your beer by leaving it in the primary for as long as it needs to to finish the initial process. 72 hrs is waaayyyy too short a time. I can't believe the directions tell you to bottle that fast!
You can leave it in the secondary for months.
You'll probably want to check your gravity when you get back, then wait one or two days and check again. If it's stable, you should be fine to bottle.
It's important to do your gravity checks unless you're one of the people that just wait so long, that it's GOT to be done...
You will need at least two weeks to carbonate with the bottles in a warm room. (75F or so)
I have had batches carbonate in as little as 3 days, and as long as...well....they're still not quite there....
You should have beer for Christmas, no problem.

[Fast_Eddy]

Fret,

Having you bottle your beer after 72 hours is way too soon.

Bottling or kegging before a wort is completely (relatively speaking) attenuated to create carbonation is called spunding - and is widely regarded as being very difficult to do predictably.

Like everyone has said - you can follow the 7 day pattern, or the bubble count scheme for transfer to secondary - really you just learn "to know". I know of two european brewers rules of thumb:

1) For lagers: the czechs believe that one day in primary for each degree plato is appropriate

2) The germans follow a more complex racking schedule where the wort is allowed to respire on the trub then racked to primary then racked to secondary when wort is 66% attenuated.


Anyhoo - your beer will be great.