Is It Beer Yet? - Second Fermentation

Thanks to a bout of stomach flu, first for Matt & then for me, we didn't get to move our beer to the second fermenter until this weekend (we had planned to do it last weekend). It technically doesn't have to be moved to a second fermenter but, it will help achieve a clearer beer with less sediment & prevent an off taste. (A lot of what I'm reading now though say second fermentation isn't recommend anymore unless you are actually doing a another fermentation by adding more sugar or yeast.)


At this point we actually have something that really looks & smells like beer, the hoppy aroma has mellowed out. Using a syphon Matt moves the beer to the second fermenter being careful to stop before any of the sediment or yeast cake comes through.

Then he uses a thief to take a sample of the beer to test its gravity. He compares it to our original reading & discovers our beer is probably about 7% alcohol. The airlock is added & this time we put vodka in it instead of water because its sterile. It's seems fermentation is totally done with this batch based on the gravity & the fact that the bubbling in the airlock had stopped so, we can go right to bottling...stay tuned.

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