Primary Ferment How Long

Brewing processes and methods. How to brew using extract, partial or all-grain. Tips and tricks.

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Toobsmp
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Apr 08, 2002 9:31 pm

Primary Ferment How Long

Post by Toobsmp »

Ok so this is my first batch ever, im used Muntons Dry yeast in a 5 gallon carboy. The fermentation was fairly rapid and began within 6 hours and ended 1 day later. The airlock is bubbling about once ever 2-3 minutes now. Its been 4 days now total and i was wondering if i should transfer to a secondary carboy already. Also my buddy has a second carboy for me, but i wont have it for another week or so : i was thinking about sterilizing my bottling bucket and transferring my brew to that while i clean the carboy out. This way i can use the same carboy for secondary ; Is this a bad idea? or if i am really clean about it will it work. I greatly appreciate anyone who helps, this is my first time and i just want to minimize on mistakes if i can. Thanks
andytv
Double IPA
Double IPA
Posts: 206
Joined: Tue Jan 30, 2001 8:55 pm

Sanitize!!

Post by andytv »

Yes you can use you bottling bucket as a temporary holding tank until you get your carboy cleaned out, but you'll want to be very clean about it. In it's current state, your beer is not as susceptable to infection as it was after the boil, the amount of alcoholand CO2 in your beer makes for a somewhat hostile environment for bacterial growth. In my opinion, you can transfer the batch to a secondary as soon as the krausen has subsided and the yeast & trub settles, but I usually wait a week. One thing you will want to watch is adding excessive oxygen to the beer by allowing it to splash. Use siphon tubes, etc to carefully transfer the beer. Oh yeah.... don't worry about that last 3/4" of beer left behind.....its not worth it. Leave as much of the crud behind as possible when you transfer and you'll have a clearer, cleaner beer. Severe "floaties" give homebrew a bad name.

Good Luck!!

Andy
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