Its been one week since fermentation began and its time to transfer the beer into a secondary fermenter. I did a good bit of research on the debatable subject of secondary fermentation and decided to give it a try. Racking the beer from the primary fermenter to a secondary fermenter gets the beer off of the sediment and aids in clearing the beer. The problem is that everytime you expose the beer to oxygen, you risk contamination. Further, some people think that leaving the beer on the sediment (trub) has no negative effect on taste so racking is just a waste of time unless you plan on fermenting for a long period of time (lagers and high gravity beers). One thing people do tend to agree on is that it is best to rask to a secondary fermenter if you plan to dry hop the beer. Since I was planning on dry hopping (and because I was getting bored and impatient just watching the jug of beer sit in the corner) I decided to rack the beer to a secondary.
First things first, I needed a secondary fermenter. I purchased a 6 gallon glass carboy this time instead of another 5 gallon. The reason I bought a 6 gallon is because next time I plan on using the 6 gallon as the primary fermenter and racking to the 5 gallon. With a 6 gallon primary, I won't need a blowoff tube. Apparently using a blowoff tube results in the loss of some hop aroma.
After getting the new carboy out of the box, I immediately proceeded to drop on the driveway. Nice move. It has a small (1/4") crack on the inside near the neck. I will probably replace it before the next batch, but for now I think it will be ok because the crack is airtight and is higher than the beer will sit.
The racking was pretty simple. We sanitized the new carboy, stopper, airlock, hydrometer and siphon. Then we removed the blowoff tube and stopper and took a reading with the hydrometer. The specific gravity was now 1.015. According to the charts I think I am around 7% abv. That sounds about right for an IPA.
Next I sat the fermenter on the table, inserted the auto-siphon, pumped once and the beer started flowing into fermenter #2. We took a quick sample at this point. It was actually really good. Good bitterness and flavor. It was a little yeasty (as expected) and lacked some of the hop aroma I was shooting for, but overall pretty good. The dry hops should add a good bit of aroma.
Once the beer was completely transferred to the second fermenter, I shoved about an ounce of cascade hops into the new fermenter. That's it, racking and dryhopping done. I put the new stopper and airlock in place and put the fermenter back to bed. Its bubbling about once a minute (or slower) now. I'm planning to leave it like this for two weeks before bottling.
One thing I am not certain of is whether I racked at the right time. You are supposed to rack after primary fermentation ends. How do you know when that happens? The general rule (which is what I used) is one week. Another theory is to wait until bubbling gets down to about 5 per minute. That is about what mine was at, but I never timed it. Still another method, and probably the most accurate, is to take daily hydrometer readings. When the readings level off, primary fermentation has ended. This method, however, runs the risk of contaminating the beer every time you take a reading.
I guess that is it for now. I have no pictures of the actual racking procedure because I was cheap and bought batteries for my camera at IKEA. I ran through 10 AA batteries in 10 days and only took about 30 pictures. Bottom line, the camera had no juice on racking day.
Here are some pictures after one day in the secondary fermenter. The hops are covering the top and the beer is noticeably darker than it was in the primary.
Now, wait two weeks .......... In the meantime I'll be cleaning out old beer bottles and getting ready to bottle.
First things first, I needed a secondary fermenter. I purchased a 6 gallon glass carboy this time instead of another 5 gallon. The reason I bought a 6 gallon is because next time I plan on using the 6 gallon as the primary fermenter and racking to the 5 gallon. With a 6 gallon primary, I won't need a blowoff tube. Apparently using a blowoff tube results in the loss of some hop aroma.
After getting the new carboy out of the box, I immediately proceeded to drop on the driveway. Nice move. It has a small (1/4") crack on the inside near the neck. I will probably replace it before the next batch, but for now I think it will be ok because the crack is airtight and is higher than the beer will sit.
The racking was pretty simple. We sanitized the new carboy, stopper, airlock, hydrometer and siphon. Then we removed the blowoff tube and stopper and took a reading with the hydrometer. The specific gravity was now 1.015. According to the charts I think I am around 7% abv. That sounds about right for an IPA.
Next I sat the fermenter on the table, inserted the auto-siphon, pumped once and the beer started flowing into fermenter #2. We took a quick sample at this point. It was actually really good. Good bitterness and flavor. It was a little yeasty (as expected) and lacked some of the hop aroma I was shooting for, but overall pretty good. The dry hops should add a good bit of aroma.
Once the beer was completely transferred to the second fermenter, I shoved about an ounce of cascade hops into the new fermenter. That's it, racking and dryhopping done. I put the new stopper and airlock in place and put the fermenter back to bed. Its bubbling about once a minute (or slower) now. I'm planning to leave it like this for two weeks before bottling.
One thing I am not certain of is whether I racked at the right time. You are supposed to rack after primary fermentation ends. How do you know when that happens? The general rule (which is what I used) is one week. Another theory is to wait until bubbling gets down to about 5 per minute. That is about what mine was at, but I never timed it. Still another method, and probably the most accurate, is to take daily hydrometer readings. When the readings level off, primary fermentation has ended. This method, however, runs the risk of contaminating the beer every time you take a reading.
I guess that is it for now. I have no pictures of the actual racking procedure because I was cheap and bought batteries for my camera at IKEA. I ran through 10 AA batteries in 10 days and only took about 30 pictures. Bottom line, the camera had no juice on racking day.
Here are some pictures after one day in the secondary fermenter. The hops are covering the top and the beer is noticeably darker than it was in the primary.
Now, wait two weeks .......... In the meantime I'll be cleaning out old beer bottles and getting ready to bottle.
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