after 5 days of fermenting my krausen is almost gone any suggestions on how much longer i should be waiting until I transfer over to secondary fermentation?
my first batch it took 72 hours for the krausen to go down…just had a very fast fermentation. If you so transfer to a secondary (many different thoughts on this process) I would wait for week 2. It lets the sediment settle out a little longer
my suggestion is to leave your beer in the primary No less than two weeks. i like to leave my primary alone for at least two weeks from the day I pitch the yeast. I then rack to a secondary, which I leave alone for two weeks. After that I start taking hydrometer tests. After three readings of the same gravity I keg and carb. There is debates about racking to a secondary. Some posts say to leave it in the primary for three weeks and forgo the secondary. I never tried that, but some day I probably will.
Get ready to hear many different things on this: “wait until you get the same reading after 3 days, wait a month, transfer after 5 days”, etc. The bottom line is every batch is different and it’s best not to be in a hurry. As long as it’s not in the primary more than a month, you should wait until at least a few days after you think that primary is done and it’s OK to rack.
I transfer all of my brews into a keg in two weeks as long as the gravity has stopped changing. This process has worked flawlessly for me so far. I used to do the whole 3 weeks fermentation then move to the secondary for another 2-3weeks then bottle and wait another 2 weeks. I started listening to Brewstrong a few years ago they said that its not necessary so I stopped. I have never looked back.
I’ll disagree on the “over the month” thought.
Sometimes life gets in the way of brewing duties and things still turn out OK.
