To Secondary Ferment or Not to Secondary Ferment!

[gurtpint]

One again food for thought from Aleman... What about dropping a wort with a highly flocculant strain of yeast into a secondary during active fermentation? I can't get my head around it really in this case - I know the bit about getting the wort off dead yeast and trub makes sense, but doesn't this also involve the risk of leaving out a lot of good honest-to-god-will-work-for-food yeast that may be taking a nap at the bottom of the FV due to being, erm, flocculant?

 

[Aleman]

By transferring early during the active ferment I am really talking about doing so around 18-24 hours from pitching . . . a light foam should just be forming on the surface. At this point in time the yeast are moving out of the lag / reproductive phase into the alcohol producing phase, and the active healthy yeast are in suspension in the liquid, not being lazy and sitting at the bottom with the trub.

 

[Alestar]

As with a lot of these things, the most accurate answer probably has to be try is and see!

Personally, I always try and transfer over to a clean fermenter to condition for a bit before bottling but only when the ferment is good and finished. The only time it's ever caused a problem is when I decanted it too early (I wanted to do it before I went on holiday, even though I knew it wasn't really ready!). On the other hand, when I started doing it I got noticeably clearer beer and less yeasty flavours. I do tend to add sugar and bottle straight from the "secondary" though.

 

[shearclass]

Does this make any difference whether it's kit brewing or proper brewing?

I jsut brew kits, and decided to transfer the brew from Fermentation bucket 1 to Fermentation bucket 2 after a week. I did this in the hope that when i transfer it to bottles, there will be less sediment in them. This one is a lager, which will be mostly drank by my girlfriend, and she would be put off by the sediment.

Should I have waited for fermentation to finish before transferring it to the other bucket? I had assumed that the sediment at the bottom was dead yeast, with the live yeast still buzzing around the brew :!: Is that totally wrong Have i left all the good yeast behind?

The SG of the lager is too high at the moment, being a 1 tin kit lager, i assumed the FG would be about 1.006, but it's currently 1.012.

 

[shearclass]

If I have left the good yeast behind and i'm stuck at 1.012, should i add more yeast to try and get it down to 1.006ish (remember this is a 1 tin kit of lager) or will that not do anything?

Do i just need to accept i've spoiled this a bit and bottle what i have?

 

[Ceejay]

I wouldn't add more yeast. What was your OG, and what yeast are you using? How does it taste?

 

[shearclass]

OG is a bit of a hash. I realised recently that my hydrometer is out, so i bought a new one. The new one sems to read 0.002 higher than the other one. My old one OG was 1.037. I'm therefore assuming that on my new one it would be 1.039. However, this measurement was taken at 26 degrees, and according to the forum calc this increases the actual OG to 1.041.

I admit i haven't tasted any of this yet. To be honest it never crossed me mind to taste it at this stage. It smells nice however!

 

[BigYin]

1.012 is perfectly accpetable final gravity :thumb:

 

[shearclass]

Ok, thanks. It's just that the last Coopers lager kit i did finished up at 1.007 so was expecting something similar for this.

I'll take a reading tomorrow and see if it has changed at all. If not, I'll bottle it!

Ceejay, if iwas to taste it now, what would i be tasting for? To see if it tastes sweet?