I have a Belgian Tripel in primary (OG ~1.085). It’s been actively fermenting for two and a half weeks, and I’m getting antsy to rack it to secondary. It’s still active, putting out a bubble every 10 seconds or so, but I don’t want to chance any off flavours with it sitting on the trub for too long.
Take a gravity reading today, wait a couple days and take another - if they match, you can rack. You can leave the beer on the yeast cake for at least a couple months with no ill effects, so don’t worry about it.
I went ahead and racked - the gravity was down to 1.0095 or so. I tasted the gravity sample, and it tasted very alcohol-y, and a little ester-y. It was well pitched and never got too warm, so maybe my pallete is off. More concerningly, I didn’t get any hops character, in spite of it being a Houblonmonstre tripel IPA. I know it’s for aroma and not flavour, but would I be well served dry hopping?
High gravity beers such as this are almost always better after they have aged and mellowed a bit. Frankly I would never expect a 1.085>1.009 beer to be at it’s best for at least a few months, or even close to a year.
I guess it all depends upon what your own pallet is accustomed to.
Thank you for the reassurance. It’s going to spend the next couple months in the basement anyhow, but I wanted to be sure I wasn’t on the wildly wrong track.
