Fermentation Advice: Headspace in Secondary

You can't tell without opening and sampling. If you want to be reasonably sure for a mid-gravity beer, I'd say give it 3 weeks in the bottle at 70F. But it can happen quicker too.

 

Vikeman is correct about drinking the beer to find out when it's ready. I usually start sampling my bottled beer after 10 days, and usually by then it is nearly complete. Carbonate the bottles at the fermentation temp that was used for the beer, although I usually let it condition for a couple days at a slightly higher temp before storing it back in the basement to finish the carbonation process.

Two tips:

(1.) use the last 1-2 beers that were bottled for your first sampling (mark the cap with an 'X' so you know which ones). These bottles frequently get air bubbles from the filling process when your beer level hits the spigot outlet at the bottom of the bottling bucket, so you want them to be consumed early anyway.

(2.) when mixing your priming sugar into the beer stir it gently to get it well mixed, and then do it a few more times during the bottling. The sugar is heavier than the beer and wants to settle out, so use some gentle upward strokes with your sanitized spoon from the bottom of the bucket to get it suspended again. Otherwise you'll have some over-carbonated bottles that could become gushers, and some under-carbonated bottles.

 

I think I'm one of the few here whose secondary fermenter isn't just collecting dust.

Like all the secondary haters said, you could definitely skip that part of the process. But if you're adamant about transferring to a secondary, then another solution is to sanitize a bunch of marbles and stick 'em in the larger carboy. That should fill up the extra head space nicely.

 

I do this too, and I also mark the first bottle since starting the auto-siphon seems to cause some oxidation. And those beers have always been fine because I drank them early.

 

Damn that long? I feel kind of bad for drinking my Berliner after a week, but it seemed carbonated enough to me.

 

Not necessarily that long. As I said...to be reasonable sure. Risk management.

 

How sure are you about your gravity readings? 1.070 -> 1.008 is almost 89% apparent attenuation. What yeast strain did you use?

 

1.068 to 1.008 would be about 88% apparent attenuation. That's pretty high for 1056, even if the deck had been stacked with a very fermentable all grain wort. Have you tasted it by any chance?

 

Sour. With that high an attenuation, I was thinking a possible infection. But it doesn't sound like that's the case.