Monday, December 12, 2011

Belgian racked to secondary

Active fermentation appears to be coming to an end, so I moved my Belgian to a secondary fermentor today.  This move gets the beer off of any residual yeast, hops and other sediment while allowing the fermentation to continue.  Beer sitting on dead yeast is not good after a couple of weeks.  They dead cells will begin to break down and affect the flavor.  It is also a better practice to let the beer age in glass rather than my plastic primary.  This will extend the life of my primary fermentor as the plastic will break down over time. Racking is a pretty simple operation really.

Sanitizing

First, as always, wash and sanitize.  The secondary is a little harder to deal with than my bucket primary.  I really need to invest in a carboy carrier, too many more of these operations and I will break my glass carboy.   Then you just set the primary up higher than the secondary so gravity will feed the beer down tube into the secondary.  Remove the airlock and then take a quick hydrometer reading before transferring the beer.  My reading today was 1.028, so we had a fairly good drop during the first week.  The beer will probably drop a few more points during the secondary ferment, but we are just about there.  I took a quick sample of the beer and was pleasantly surprised.  It is still not too complex, but the alcohol warmth hits you quick, followed by a nice banana follow.  There was a little hop flavor there, but as I would expect the sweet malt and yeast esters take center stage.  Not sure I noted the maple syrup, but I only took a little sip of the sample.  The fragrance is sweet and fruity as well.  Pretty much what I had expected at this point.

Racked in secondary
Beer in motion
After measuring the gravity and taking a quick sip, I hooked up the transfer tube, opened the valve and let the beer flow out.  The secondary was quickly air locked and moved back into my bathroom shower.  I will let it sit there for about 30 days when it will be ready to bottle.  I am planning on closing off the heating vent and letting the temp lower to normal home temp - for me that is about 65 F.






Sediment in primary
 Then clean up the primary and I am done with my beer chores for the day.  Now the hard part, waiting for the beer to finish up!  In the mean time, I scout for my next recipe.  I have an open primary, so I may opt for a lower gravity beer I can bottle a week after brewing.  I already have my Belgian starter waiting so half the work is done.





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