Racking Question
TroubleShooting
Nici van Nieuwkasteele — Lommedalen, Norway asks,
I am brewing a saison and after 12 days the fermentation is nearly over, but there is still activity. The thing is that I need to use my fermenter this coming weekend for a new batch and I’m wondering if I can transfer my saison from my Unitank to a FermZilla All Rounder (a PET fermenter) to Finish. Do I transfer all the yeast and beer (via dump valve) or only the beer (via racking valve), as if I were transferring to a keg after crash cooling?
Racking beer from your stainless conical to a PET secondary fermenter is a great way to free up your stainless fermenter. If you have yeast in the cone or trub, I would suggest either clearing the bottom and moving all of the beer to your All Rounder, or transferring out of the racking valve if you don’t have to sacrifice much beer for this transfer. Getting beer off of yeast after primary is complete has flavor benefits because prolonged contact between beer and yeast can result in autolysis and accompanying soy sauce/yeast/umami flavors. The bottom valve on your conical fermenter can normally be used for this purpose, and is a very handy tool. There are no major issues with your general plan to free up your fermenter and you should have plenty of yeast in suspension to finish the fermentation.
