Secondary fermenter question

[Scott Miller]

I only currently have the 2.5 gallon mr beer fermenter, but I need to secondary my brew, how bad of an idea is it to transfer the ale to gallon containers that my brew water came in while i clean out the trub and re sanitize the mr beer? then transfer the ale back into the mr beer?

[Stodbrew]

It can be done, you just have to be very, very careful. Make sure everything the beer touches is clean and sanitized. And be very careful not to aerate your beer, too. The less times a beer is moved the better.

[mikfaria]

What I did until I could get a carboy for a secondary is buy a bucket from walmart and cut a hole for a stopper. I brewed a 3 gal batch and racked about 2.8 of it to the MR. Beer keg as a secondary. I ran into a problem with too much movement. I think I stripped most of the CO2 and yeast out of the beer and got little carbonation when I bottled.

[HogieWan]

For my first few batches I only had one carboy and liked using glass for both primary and secondary, so I after primary in the carboy I racked to the bottling bucket, cleaned and sanitised the carbuy and racked back to it. The beer came out great.

I did this at first by accident. I wasn't going to do a secondary until it was time for a secondary and I changed my mind. I have since gotten another carboy and intend to buy a few more.

[Scott Miller]

thanks guys, this things got the spigot so I should be able to adapt a siphon hose to it and "drain" the beer into the jugs pretty quietly . siphoning it back into the fermenter will be the only tricky part. I ordered a 3 gallon glass carboy and an airlock from northern brewer, just not sure when it will be arriving, maybe I'll just wait for it, maybe this beer could still use more time in primary, its been 5 days and is still churning like mad!

[Payson]

If it's still churning like mad, a few more days in primary would be a good idea.

[Scott Miller]

Well I decided to just leave it alone in the primary, today the carboy arrived and I racked it into secondary, there is alot of airlock action already, in a week or two, if its ready to bottle, will it stop bubbling or just bubble very slowly?

Also had a taste of some out of the primary, tasted green but not bad! Best of all, none of the vinager taste that the last one had. Just a definate ale-y taste.

[mikfaria]

The CO2 action will slow to almost nothing. What I look for is about 1 bubble every 30 seconds. Mostly I just go with 2 weeks as a rule. If my batch is still going strong, I'll give it another day or two.

[Scott Miller]

Well now tonight theres no bubbling at all, wasnt any this morning either, at least not while i stood there and watched for a minute, but there is foam above the water in the airlock like it has bubbled recently..so this is probably done fermenting, just needs to condition a week or two... will I keep seeing more sediment on the floor as the beer conditions? Or should I just stop bein so curious, give the thing a couple weeks then bottle?

[Scott Miller]

Yeah theres no bubbling anymore, I must have just woke it up a bit when I racked it into the carboy. Is this beer going to condition any if its not bubbling?

[mikfaria]

That's one for someone more experienced that I. I'd wait for a week atlleast. Then bottle. I have a batch that just did about the same thing, but the airlock is still suspended.
One piece of advise that I got on this board is that it's really hard to mess up a batch of beer. Go with your instincts.
Also, if there's foam in the airlock, you might want to clean it. It might be cloged. Foam usually apears when I've filled the carboy too high and am getting some blow-off in it. Just do it quickly to minimize oxygen exposure.

[fretlessman71]

You bet it will condition if it's not bubbling. Bubbling just means that it's still fermenting; letting it condition after it's done will improve your beer. John Palmer explains it very well here: http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter8-2-3.html

[Scott Miller]

Thanks for the link.

What I called foam for lack of a better word was the bubbles above the solution in the bubbler, under the red cap thing, not yeast blowoff, it was bubbling good last night after i racked it, and all the bubbles made sort of a foam, if that makes any sense.

thanks guys.

[fretlessman71]

So you're talking about the airlock, right? Bubbles are a good sign. Are you getting little "blurbs" every so often?

[Scott Miller]

Well it was thursday night that i racked, then there was immedite bubbling afterwords, followed by none the next day, or the next. Then sunday there was consistent bubbling all day. It was colder sunday than it has been since I brewed. Go figure.