Brain went to sleep, premature rack to secondary ? ? ?

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

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Azorean Brewer
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Brain went to sleep, premature rack to secondary ? ? ?

Post by Azorean Brewer »

Team,

I had a brain lapse and this morning while I was not running on all cylinders, I racked my "Azorean Brewer's Oatmeal Stout" after only 3 1/2 days on the yeast cake. The starting O.G. was 1.054, this morning it was 1.020, final target is 1.010. My question is "Will this finish out"? I know that you would like the primary to stay on the yeast cake for a minimum of 5-7 days. I was wondering why my krausen had not fallen LOL ... I was thinking that it had been 7 days, that's the trouble of having three fermenters going at one time brewed at different intervals. Thanks in advance for your input.

Paul (a.k.a. Azorean Brewer)
fitz
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a couple of things

Post by fitz »

Your wort/beer should have plenty of yeast in suspension to continue to ferment. You will have more yeast in your secondary, and you probably have some of the trub stirred into your mix because of the yeast activity. You may consider doing another racking in 3-4 days(when your beer is close to final gravity)
Hopefully you have a minimum of oxygen being transferred with the beer.
Fraoch
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Early drop

Post by Fraoch »

Early dropping to 2ndary is a common method used in an open fermentation environment, the krausen may be skimmed or the beer dropped from below, then the vessel is sealed to either a 2ndary or cask. The idea is that the krausen pushes all the trub up from below and before it sinks back through, it is removed.
The result is that only the yeast in suspension is retained and the beer ferments through.Perfect if you are making any top fermenting ale.
So removing the krausen early is not a problem, it'll ferment through and is in fact a more traditional way of brewing the style you are,it would now make a great cask conditioned stout.
Worth considering??

Fraoch
jayhawk
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Beer may turn out even better

Post by jayhawk »

I have done the early rack thing a couple times, but on purpose. I remember a thread here maybe 8-12 months ago that echoed what Fraoch just posted. I think it has been posted here by those who are learned that most fermenting is done by suspended yeast, not the yeast cake, and therefore racking during primary fermentation will not harm the fermenting ability. I have found that the early racked beer conditioned faster, but I have not done it the last few batches because, well,I'm lazy.
broon
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Fermenter ID

Post by broon »

I typically use masking tape on my fermenters with the beer name and date for next transfer/bottle just to keep things straight.
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