[UnequivocalBrewing]

I am getting conflicting opinions.  Last Sunday I brewed an IPA with 2-row pale, white wheat, a touch of carapils, and a touch of C10, along with a lb of table sugar.  I mashed at 150-151 for an hour and hit 1.073 and pitched two vials of WLP095 Burlington and a vial of WLP013 London.  After four days the Krausen had fallen in...and I took a reading at 1.022.  That's 69% attenuation and I expected to see about 1.016 (77% attenuation) with those yeasts.  There was still a fair amount swirling in the carboy and my blow off was bubbling away every 3 seconds.  So, I'm assuming there was a fair amount of yeast still in suspension.

I tried out the technique from following thread, by pushing the beer over to (with C02)  a purged keg.:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/is-4-oz-of-dry-hopping-too-much.210334/

After I transferred I put about 5 pounds of head pressure on it and have a spunding valve on it.  Overnight over the course of 12 hours it only generated another 1 PSI of pressure.

So, did I jump the gun on my transfer?  Should it clean up?  Should I have waited for terminal gravity before pushing over?  Anything I can do to get this beer to finish at 1.014 to 1.016?

[majorvices]

You really should never rack a beer before it is done fermenting, especially with english yeasts which sometimes need roused back into suspension to finish fermenting. I would not trust Beer Advocate for even their beer ratings let alone brewing advice.

[UnequivocalBrewing]

The advice came from some reputable brewers.  Check out the part where they talk about transferring after Krausen falls and you will see what I'm talking about.

[HoosierBrew]

You really should never rack a beer before it is done fermenting, especially with english yeasts which sometimes need roused back into suspension to finish fermenting. I would not trust Beer Advocate for even their beer ratings let alone brewing advice.

THIS^

[Stevie]

Have you measured the gravity since transferring? How long has it been?

[UnequivocalBrewing]

No, I haven't checked gravity since transferring.  It's in a corny keg right now.  It built up 1PSI in the keg over night from 8PM to 6AM, that's the only thing I have to go on at this point.

[Stevie]

While I agree with the other opinions that transferring before final gravity is a bad idea, it's too soon to worry. If it comes down to it, you could krausen it to knock it down, but I'd wait and see.

Have you tasted the beer?

[denny]

The advice came from some reputable brewers.  Check out the part where they talk about transferring after Krausen falls and you will see what I'm talking about.

even reputable brewers can be wrong.

[UnequivocalBrewing]

Steve in TX - yes I tasted the beer that I took the gravity sample.  It tastes nice for how early it is.  Two things:
1.  It's yeasty
2.  It's a little on the sweet side

[reverseapachemaster]

The advice came from some reputable brewers.  Check out the part where they talk about transferring after Krausen falls and you will see what I'm talking about.

The homebrewing area on BA is probably collectively the worst collection of homebrewing advice on the planet. I'd rather take my chances on reddit. But alright, you came here looking for help and not criticism of beeradvocate.

If you read the post you're referencing it's one guy who is imputing this process on another poster who didn't say to jump the beer into a keg before dry hopping. Oldsock's post talks about dry hopping before the end of fermentation and then a second dry hopping in the serving keg after fermentation is complete and the beer is ready to be served. So I can understand the confusion about the advice you're getting in that BA thread because it is itself contradictory. I would follow the process Oldsock explains rather than this other guy's supposed professional process. To the extent that any pro brewer is actually brewing that NE pale/IPA style following the other guy's process I would point out that the fermentation mechanics on a pro system are different than homebrew and what works there is not necessarily effective for us. It's particularly true of English yeast who are more sensitive to pressure and oxygen exposure than typical American yeast strains.

Solutions for this beer probably include rousing the yeast in the keg and depressurizing the keg to try to give the yeast an easier environment to ferment. You may need to krausen that keg to continue to dry it out.

[UnequivocalBrewing]

Thanks everyone for the responses.  I am going to let it for for a few days and test gravity.  If it hasn't budged I'll look into some options.

[brewinhard]

It appears you have racked your beer too early off the primary yeast cake.  This did not allow for enough time for the yeast to not only fully complete the initial fermentation and properly drop the gravity, but also did not allow enough time for the yeast to clean up and condition the beer.

Give your IPA a good 10-14 days prior to transferring next time.  I would err on the side of caution at 14 days in this instance until you get a better feel for how your fermentations progress from yeast strain to yeast strain and recipe formulation.

[UnequivocalBrewing]

I figured I would update folks on this. 9-10 days after transferring this to the keg with the dry hops I'm at about 1.017 and the activity is just about slowed down. So, this is about 75% attenuation which is right in the range of the yeasts I used.

The beer is tasting great!

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[Hand of Dom]

I tend to leave my beers for 21 days in primary and don't bother with a secondary. I feel it minimises oxygen exposure, and gives the yeast the chance to tidy up after itself once it's finished producing alcohol.


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[majorvices]

I figured I would update folks on this. 9-10 days after transferring this to the keg with the dry hops I'm at about 1.017 and the activity is just about slowed down. So, this is about 75% attenuation which is right in the range of the yeasts I used.

The beer is tasting great!

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Seems like it took an awfully long time to finish fermenting after you took it off the yeast. My primary fermentation is complete in 9-10 days prior to racking. You may not have noticed a problem on this batch but I highly recommend that if you keep up this (to be honest, pointless) practice that you save your yeast in case you have a stall. Most likely, at some point, you will.