I brewed an extract kit of Lakefront’s Fixed Gear last week using Wyeast 1056, and the primary fermentation seems to be complete - no action in the air lock. The standard primary phase per the recipe is two weeks, with two weeks in a secondary carboy before bottling. Seeing as how the primary fermentation seems to be complete though, I was thinking of racking it early to get it off the trub and prevent autolysis. Is it safe to rack it into the secondary fermenter before the two week primary phase? I have only brewed a few batches so far, but I’ve already noticed one batch go through a mini secondary fermentation phase in the primary carboy, where fermentation kick-started again after about 10 days. If that is going to happen, and is a good thing, I’d rather leave it. But if not, I kind of want to rack it sooner than later. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
You never want to asume anything done by airlock activity. You always want to check your hydrometer reading against your projected terminal gravity. Alot of people on this board advocate not using a secondary at all unless you want to dry hop or add flavoring. But not sure with your recipe. Sometimes that activity that happens later is just co escaping.
Autolysis does not occur in 2 weeks, I have let an irish red ale sit in primary for 7 weeks because I forgot about it. If anything it would take more than 2 months for autolysis occur, most of us here probably let our beers sit in primary for a month. We let our beer sit on the yeast for awhile because even after fermentation is complete the yeast will normally clean up any off flavors. Although most people on the board advise that secondary is only necessary for dry hopping and other additions, i still do secondary to clear out the beer, I don’t see why not. Anyways you never really have to worry about autolysis until after maybe 8 weeks.
I have an average gravity beer still sitting in primary going on 2 years.
A mead that is over 1 year old.
I am not concerned about autolysis.
Yes I know, I’ve been a little lazy. :oops:
