too much junk?
Moderator: slothrob
too much junk?
Ok, so pretend that I was stupid for a few minutes on brewday and in the confusion of how to get one thing from the brewpot into the carboy I forgot that I wanted to keep a lot of other things out (grain, hop rests, chocolate bits, etc.) How much will having pretty much everything that was in the brewpot now in my carboy? Should I rack to secondary ASAP (it's been 4 days now)? Or is it already too late? It had a furious fermentation for two days and now it's been bubbling consistently every 45 seconds. Any thoughts would be more than I've got.
Probably ready to rack anyway
If you had a vigorous fermentation and the airlock is only bubbling once every 45 seconds than you are probably ready to rack anyway. I would take a hydrometer reading and see if you are near your final gravity. If so than go ahead and rack. If not that I would let the fermentation finish rather than worry about the crap that got into the fermenter. I always try to avoid getting that stuff into the primary as best I can but I never stress about it getting in there. This is especially true if you are brewing an ale which has a breif primary fermentation because it is only in the primary a fairly short time and has limited contact time. I just brewed a Munich Helles lager a couple of weeks ago and got way more hop material into the fermenter than I wanted. It was in the primary for 2 weeks before I dropped the trub and it still tasted great. The most important thing to keep in mind when brewing is never to stress about it. I hope this was helpful.
Rich
Rich