When To Rack?

[Ivan Other One]

I confess to being a serial racker and have been for 5 years and never had an infection from that process, always rack when FG has been reached though.
BB

I'm with you BB,
been doin the same for about six months now when FG has been reached, and never had an infection.
Rack with finings to clear and then after 48 hours or so keg and bottle, VIOLAH,, nice clear beer. :icon_cheers:

 

[bowie in space]

I always leave in primary for a minimum of 14 days. I hardly check the gravity, just let it do it's thing. The yeast drops to the bottom and the beer clears up during the second week. My gravity usually ends up around 1.010. Then I rack for bulk priming purposes and bottle. I tried racking to secondary after around seven days to clear it some more and also tried gelatine finings, but it's a PITA. Sure, you get a clearer beer but I don't really give a shit if it looks a little cloudy.

It's up to your personal view of beer aesthetics.

Bowie

 

[manticle]

due to the lazy, lazy truncation of the term down to 'secondary', which can mean multiple things......the info I posted is in relation to secondary fermentation, more specifically to the traditional English method of secondary fermentation.

My main interest too.

So for a beer I expect to finish around 1012, I should be racking at 1016? Good to know, cheers.

I'd just like to say again though to all those who think racking is purely cosmetic - what you are basically suggesting is that yeast has no effect on flavour which is clearly nonsense. Try pouring 3/4 of your beer into one glass and the remaining sedimenty bit into another. Taste the difference. Do the same thing with an aventinus, a coopers, a chimay, a schofferhoffer.

No problem with people deciding racking for either secondary ferment OR clarity is not for them but less sediment has a distinct effect on flavour. If you can't taste it, I reckon your tongue needs a clean.

 

[matti]

I am experimenting with my last Partial APA.
it has gone from 1.054 to 1.009 in 6 days with us-05 at 18-20 degrees.
I crash chilling over night and tomorrow I am going to dry hop it for a week with Amarillo pellets.
All in the primary.
it is 23L+ batch so ill keg most and bottle the rest.

Usually I rack but i'll see if I can survive without LOL