Dropped the damn carboy

[ZSK]

Ok...After nine days in primary I decide it's time to go to secondary. I had no visible activity in the airlock for a day.

Anyway, I didn;t get the carboy carrier on good enough and dropped the carboy. THANK THE BEER GODS IT DIDN"T BREAK. Only lost about a bottle when it sloshed up the side. I really believe cussing helped this situation.

Now, how long before I can go to secondary? Two days...three? What do you guys think?

[Tweek]

I would give it a few hours to settle then transfer it. but that is just me. I am of the opinion that a beer should never be left more than 6 days in the primary.

[ZSK]

Tweek, Usually I like to get ot out of primary within 7 days. So I guess we're on the same frequency. This time however, the yeast was slow to start. It was in primary 7 days after the yeast came to life.

[Tweek]

I would still go ahead and transfer it after a few hours. Most of the trub is usually clumped up should fall back out of suspension fairly fast. You amy end up with a bit more trub in your secondary than you are used to but it beats running the risk of ruining your beer from leaving it in primary too long.

[ZSK]

Thanks Tweek, looks like I'm staying up late tonight!

[orb]

Yeah, I've been there. I finally bit the bullet and bought a couple of those rubberized handles and move them from carboy to carboy...I wouldn't worry, give it 1-2 hours to settle down. The bulk of the trub is electrostatically stuck on the bottom. It'll be cool....

[Fast_Eddy]

Originally posted by Tweek
I would give it a few hours to settle then transfer it. but that is just me. I am of the opinion that a beer should never be left more than 6 days in the primary.

I've been using a technique I've read called "dropping" with good success lately. For homebrewing it essentially just involves racking your beer after it's been fermenting for about two days. It's an intersection in German and English brewing really - letting the yeast respire on the trub for two days to aid in reproduction then removing it from the trub to prevent off tastes. Also the yeast cake harvested from primary is much more pure.

To me it has improved the clarity of my beers taste - less slightly off flavors.

[danno]

OK, Eddy, tell us more. are you getting most of your vigorous ferment completed before you rack? I'm intrigued by this...

if you're only doing a 2 day primary, how would your yeastcake be more pure? I'd think you'd still have a lot of active yeast in suspension at that stage... (just trying to think this through a little...)

[barley ben]

So does this mean you do a two day primary and a longer secondary or is it more of a doulbe primary and you still do secondary when the yeast calms down.

I'm a bit lost on which yeastcake you use. Is it the yeast cake from the second fermeting vessel? The first one seems as though it would be almost all trub and the second would be healthy yeast.

[YamahaXS]

damn lucky. be sure to burn sage and kill a goat when you drink the first beer of that batch.

[Fast_Eddy]

Originally posted by danno
OK, Eddy, tell us more. are you getting most of your vigorous ferment completed before you rack? I'm intrigued by this...

if you're only doing a 2 day primary, how would your yeastcake be more pure? I'd think you'd still have a lot of active yeast in suspension at that stage... (just trying to think this through a little...)

For the most part I rack it just after the kraeusen peaks but before it drops back into the beer.

I don't really think of it as a 2 day primary - more like a 2 day pre-primary. The yeast cake is a higher percentage yeast simply because I rack while most of the yeast is still in suspension and hasn't starting settling out. So what settles to the bottom in the primary isn't yeast+large amount of hot/cold/hop material - it's mostly just yeast and whatever hot/cold/hop material was in suspension as a result of the ferment.

This way you get the oft-touted benefit of the cold trub with regard to yeast reproduction but you restrict the problem of off flavors from sitting on the trub.

Anyhoo - this is my newest change....hope somebody finds this interesting.

[paul84043]

I have the rubberized handles on every one of my carboys, too much of a pain to keep switching them around and cheap insurance.

I have been trying to simplify brewing, not make it more complicated...I do the week cycle, one in primary, two in secondary, and my beer has turned out great. I have never really detected anything that I would consider to be an "off" flavor in any of my beers, but I oxygenate and use only liquid yeast, both of which are "supposed" to reduce off flavor and maximize fermentation.

[Fast_Eddy]

Originally posted by paul84043
I have the rubberized handles on every one of my carboys, too much of a pain to keep switching them around and cheap insurance.

I have been trying to simplify brewing, not make it more complicated...I do the week cycle, one in primary, two in secondary, and my beer has turned out great. I have never really detected anything that I would consider to be an "off" flavor in any of my beers, but I oxygenate and use only liquid yeast, both of which are "supposed" to reduce off flavor and maximize fermentation.

ANYTHING can be improved. I'm a perenial tinkerer and love finding new ways to do things.

[paul84043]

I too am a die hard tinkerer, but mostly my efforts are towards doing things faster and easier....

I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of racking while fermentation is at its peak.
I have heard of the germans doing something similar, but have never really been able to "see" the benefit.

[axis714]

I have been racking to secondary after 2-3 days myself for quite awhile....I started doing this as a lagering technique to get my beer off the trub as quickly as possible and noticed that a medium fermentation in my secondary not only assured the headspace to fill with co2 but also that the yeastcake i wanted to harvest was cleaner and my ferments finished closer to my FG
I notice a small lag time after racking but ferment resumes within hours and seems to last a bit longer than usual..up to 9 days sometimes before conditioning time.
I never realised it was an actual "technique" it just seemed to be practical for my method.