[mmuniz276]

Whats up Guys,
So I am about 5 days into my primary fermentation, I used WLP002 and made a big yeast starter. My air lock has stopped like normal and this is about the time I would be dry hopping and racking into my secondary (i have only made ipa's and pale ales). My question is because I dont need to dry hop, should I just let it ride in the primary? If so how long? Or should it go in the secondary so its not sitting on a huge bed of dead and or unactive yeast cells.
Thanks guys

[Stevie]

I would let it ride minimum of two weeks, maybe longer. Wait until it is finished and don't bother with secondary unless you are adding ingredients or aging for a long time. The tried and true method of telling if it is done is two identical gravity readings two or three days apart.

Honestly I wait three weeks most of the time just out of laziness or lack of clean kegs/bottles.

[dmtaylor]

One week is sufficient.  Two weeks is better.

Racking to secondary is unnecessary unless you plan on keeping the beer in primary for a couple of MONTHS.  In the first 6 weeks or so, there is zero risk of yeast autolysis unless you were to friggin cook it at 100 F or something stupid like that.

Let it ride for a little while, then keg or bottle.  It's all good.

[mmuniz276]

Sounds good guys, Yea I was worried about the beer sitting on yeast, But its in a temp control chamber so all good there. Thanks guys

[BrewBama]

Honestly I wait three weeks most of the time just out of laziness or lack of clean kegs/bottles.

+1 to laziness and no clean kegs/bottles.

[HoosierBrew]

Honestly I wait three weeks most of the time just out of laziness or lack of clean kegs/bottles.

+1 to laziness and no clean kegs/bottles.

+2

[mmuniz276]

wish I can keg, Bottle washing is gettin old fast

[mattybrass]

+1 to leaving most of my beers in primary for 2-3 weeks. Laziness plus giving the yeast more than enough time they need for their fermentation party and cleaning up after themselves after.

[sambates]

I too let it ride for about 2 to 3 weeks and that allows the yeast to clean up any potential nasty side-effects of fermentation.

[mattybrass]

Also, what temp did you mash at?

[mmuniz276]

What do you mean by ''mash"? Its a extract with some grains thrown in. Those were about 155F for 50mins and 160-170 for the last 10ish mins

Thank you

[mattybrass]

oh haha ignore that, for some reason i thought this was a partial mash recipe. keep in mind that extract is only about 80% fermentable. what was your OG and what is the SG now?

[mmuniz276]

The OG was 1.057 and I ill take a reading when I am about to bottle, I dont like to open the fermenter up. i am shooting for a FG: 1.019

[mattybrass]

1.019 should be possible. Has there been any activity recently?

[morticaixavier]

The OG was 1.057 and I ill take a reading when I am about to bottle, I dont like to open the fermenter up. i am shooting for a FG: 1.019

if you don't take a reading until you bottle how do you know your done before bottling? it might be fine 9 out of 10 times but that 10th time could be a big mess with exploding bottles. the only time I've had bottle bombs the beer had spent two or three months in primary. but it was stalled and hadn't finished. I finally got impatient and bottled only to have fermentation start up again in the bottle.

you should get over your fear of opening the fermenter. nothing is going to jump in there and ruin the beer and you can't know what's going on in there without measuring.

to paraphrase Denny, if you can't take a gravity reading without infecting your beer, perhaps you should take up knitting.