ok, I got the Sierra Madras kit (sierra Nevada clone kit), because my wife like Sierra Nevada and occasionally I have to prove my worth to her and make her happy.
I modified it for a 6 gallon batch (added grains and DME), kept my hops in mesh bags (because I am not an animal!) and pitched the yeast on Saturday. (I prime the dry yeast with sugar water before I tun on the boil)… 4 days later the bubbling stopped, yesterday (5 days after pitching the yeast) I throw a hydrometer in there… 1.014, the recipe does not give an FG but the recipe states to primary ferment 1-2 weeks… But I think I am done…right?
Next question is that they say to secondary ferment for 2-4 more weeks… I have this in a conical fermenter,and want this to get in a keg…So my plan was to remove the trub, have it sit for another 10-14 days in the conical, remove the trub again and then move to a keg… and then basically start drinking and make the wife happy… anyone see problems with this plan?
Beer can’t read a calendar. It’s finished when it’s finished. 1.014 isn’t too far out of ordinary with extract beers.
If you are using a conical dump the trub and let it go to “secondary.” I put that in quotes as it’s really not a secondary unless you add fermentables. Don’t do another dump unless you plan on letting it settle again for a few days. Every time you dump the trub you’ll actually have some yeast resuspended. Dumping too much will actually waste beer too.
Can you cold crash in your conical? That’s your best bet for clear beer. Let ferment, dump, let sit, cold crash and let sit, keg clear beer above the trub.
Also, just my 2 cents if this is your first time using the conical…
My first time, I emptied the trub at the end/during the primary fermentation, and the conical was not pressurized with CO2, so every trub emptying introduced O2 through the beer and this led to high discoloration and oxidized taste.
What has been discussed here on the forum is either:
A) using co2 to pressurize the conical so that O2 doesn’t enter in via bubbles
B) only empty the trub out at bottling time. This would obviously take a few empties due to a lot of settling over primary and secondary
C) open the valve immediately upon transferring into the conical (too late for you to do this now, if you haven’t already), so that the trub has a place to settle without introducing bubbles
If you are more seasoned with the conical, then this is moot. But if not, I don’t want you to waste beer like I did
Thanks, but I have a FastFerment 7.5 gallon conical… I am not see how I can pressurize that. the Trub holder is only 16 oz, I have never noticed a oxidized taste, even with multiple dumps.
I 2ed fermented it in the keg, it ended at 1.005.
This turned out to be a nice beer, however it was cloudy. I blame the conical.
I am reminding myself to add the Irish moss to tamp that down, I really don’t want to transfer before kegging, but I think for the lighter beers that may be a requirement with the conical.
