Racked to secondary too soon

[Drekavac]

Yesterday I accidentally racked the wrong fermenter to secondary. The fermenter that I racked is a wheat beer that had only been in the fermenter for 4 days. Unfortunately I didn't realise until I took a gravity reading after it had finished transferring. Beer smith estimated the gravity at secondary to be 1.018 and the actual gravity was 1.026.

To fix this I was considering repitching the yeast but I've noticed there's still a fair amount of activity so fermentation definitely hasn't stopped. I'm using a corny keg for secondary and can release CO2 from the relief valve every half day. Is pitching yeast again a good idea? Is it even necessary to spend another $15 on yeast if there's still activity?

 

[Rocker1986]

Why are you racking beers to secondary at all?

 

[Drekavac]

Why are you racking beers to secondary at all?

So I can free up the fermenter for another batch (do at least one a week) and allow the beer to condition for a month or so. Also don't want to pick up off flavours by letting it sitting on the trub longer than it needs to.

 

[warra48]

Why pitch more yeast when you still have active fermentation?
Leave well enough alone, and let the residual yeast in the beer do the job for you.

 

[Coodgee]

yeah the yeast in the trub isn't doing anything useful. It's the yeast still in suspension that is doing all the work. so you probably haven't slowed down fermentation at all. A lot of the american brewers rack their beers to secondary after 4 days for some reason. You will probably have more yeast than you intended to in the bottom of your keg though at the end of the ferment. racking to secondary is a bit out of fashion on this board. reasons for this are stated as "increasing the chance of infection or oxidation" and that it is simply not necessary. Clearly you have a fair reason to do it if you need to free up fermenter space. normal sanitation processes should reduce the chance of infection to almost zero. and the yeast should use up any additional oxygen that you mix into the wort. I often rack to secondary if I am going to condition say a lager for 6 weeks. I move it into a cube so it takes up less room in the fridge. I will tend to use co2 to eliminate exposure to oxygen.

 

[Drekavac]

Why pitch more yeast when you still have active fermentation?
Leave well enough alone, and let the residual yeast in the beer do the job for you.

Only worried that the yeast cell count would have dropped off a fair amount and being 14 points over the estimated FG the residual yeast might not be sufficient and result in a high FG. If you think it should be fine though I'll leave it.

 

[Drekavac]

yeah the yeast in the trub isn't doing anything useful. It's the yeast still in suspension that is doing all the work. so you probably haven't slowed down fermentation at all.

Awesome, thanks! That's what I needed to know. Yeah I have heard of people racking to secondary pretty quickly but from what I've read, the off flavours won't start to occur until around 3 to 4 weeks in primary so I don't see the rush unless you need the fermenter. Never had an infection (touch wood) but I do sanitise thoroughly and transfer everything with CO2. Yeast in the bottom of the keg shouldn't be an issue. I use separate kegs for conditioning that have slightly shorter dip tubes for that exact reason.