how is this looking?

[Jelisa08]

I moved my English Northern Ale to the secondary on 8-9. The initial fermentation had pretty much stopped. How long should I keep it in the secondary before I rack to the Sanke? I plan on serving out of my kegerator on 9-3 and want to let it carbonate over time, with a set psi on the co2. I don't plan on taking it out and shaking it, etc.

can I harvest this nasty yeast cake for my next batch?

[dminnery]

The point in transferring to a secondary is to get the beer off the yeast and allowing it to fully ferment and age before kegging or bottling. Personally, I only secondary if I'm doing a very big beer like a barleywine, otherwise I usually keg after a 2 week primary, I found that it's not needed for my beers. I would not want my beer on a yeast cake for more than 3 weeks, and yes you could harvest that yeast if you are very sure you have excellent sanitation procedures.

[Jelisa08]

thanks for the reply. I don't know why there is such a large yeast cake on this. I racked it to get it off of the yeast and this is what formed after being in the secondary for a few hours. I didn't agitate the primary before racking so I am not really sure, guess it just is what it is. I think I will rack to the keg at the end of the week.

[ajdelange]

It's been a long time since I've fermented in carboy's but I do remember oohing and aahing over what a huge yeast harvest I was going to get only to find that the actual yeast cake was not nearly as deep as things look in your photo. Turned out the yeasts clung to the sides giving the appearance of more than was actually there. Not saying that's what's going on here. Just something the thread pulled out of memory,