Secondary question

[sts]

I've racked my beer into a secondary for dry hopping but I'm already at the FG I want. Do you guys tend to lose any gravity points in secondary (any more than say .002)?

Thanks!

[SeeFish]

I think that if you have already hit your targeted F.G. it probably won't go down much further but the only way to know for sure is to take measurements over several days. In either case if the beer wasn't finished fermenting out it wouldn't matter if it was in secondary or not, there are still enough yeast in suspension to continue fermenting. If you are concerned you could cold crash it to make the yeasties go to bed. I've only done secondary a few times, if somebody knows differant please step in .

[njbabs]

Did you do a fast fermentation test to confirm the FG? Or are you going off of what is calculated by a spreadsheet/program?

I find my FG will often vary from program calculations.

But more to your point, when I used to use a secondary, I often saw a drop. Certainly have seen beers dry out more in the bottle.

If you want some insurance on keeping the FG where it's at, crash cool it. Otherwise, the added oxygen from the transfer to secondary will likely drop the FG (if there's any room for it to move). If you keg you could consider filtering/fining to prevent further drops in bottle/keg.

Like SeeFish said, a 'wait and see' approach is the only way to know w/o a fast fermentation test.

[brewinhard]

Typically when I dry hop I add my hops directly to the primary fermenter and forego the secodary. It is just one more round of cleaning, sanitizing and possibly introducing oxygen that I try to avoid.

[sts]

So do you guys dry hop during fermentation or wait till after?

Also, I've got a new issue. Major diacetyl flavor came out just today. I'm worried that the suddenness may mean infection, but the only thing to do now is let it sit and hope the remaining yeast are active enough to absorb it? Do you guys have much experience with how quickly or when diacetyl manifests itself?

[Whitebeard_Brewer]

So do you guys dry hop during fermentation or wait till after?

Also, I've got a new issue. Major diacetyl flavor came out just today. I'm worried that the suddenness may mean infection, but the only thing to do now is let it sit and hope the remaining yeast are active enough to absorb it? Do you guys have much experience with how quickly or when diacetyl manifests itself?

Diacetyl does not necessarily mean infection. Without knowing your brewing practices, and what it is you brewed (recipe), it is hard to really say for 100% certainty, what the issue is.

Diacetyl is a fermentation by-product which is normally absorbed by the yeast and reduced to more innocuous diols. High levels can result from prematurely removing the beer from the yeast or by exposure to oxygen during the fermentation.

Also produced by lactic acid bacteria, notably Pediococcus damnosus.

But like I said, without knowing your techniques, and recipe, it's hard to say for sure what is causing your perceived problem.

Hope that helps....a little!!

[siwelwerd]

+1, 9 times out of 10 a diacetyl problem is caused by racking to secondary too early (all the more reason to skip the secondary altogether). When did you transfer, what temp did you ferment at, and what yeast strain did you use?

If the yeast left do not clean it up, you can pitch an active starter at high krausen. This may reduce it to acceptable levels, depending on your palate.

[sts]

I'm making an IPA with WLP001 California Ale, kept fermentation between 68 and 71 and racked it after 7 days. My intention was to rack and cut off the yeast before the FG got too low since my last couple of beers were lacking in body, so the hope was cutting it off at 1.020 would leave some sugar to make a body. Since it's down from 1.073 I figured the yeast would have had their fill, or enough to not get the popcorn flavor.

What really concerns me is how suddenly the flavor came on. I took a sample two days ago and it seemed fine. One day ago, popcorn.

Sorry, this is all stuff I should have put in the initial posting.