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Racked The California Common

So I know we have talked about skipping the secondary on this blog.   For the most part, we follow our own advice.  For lagers, I tend to not follow that advice and I do rack to a secondary vessel to give the beer some time to condition.

This time around, it had another purpose. I needed some time between primary fermentation and bottling because I have to clean and sanitize some bottles.  This secondary phase will give me some time to do that while the beer is chilling out.

So I prepared a carboy and racked the California Common on Tuesday night.  I checked the gravity and was surprised to see that it was giving me a 1.008 reading.  I had expected a final gravity reading of 1.012, so the yeast really did their thing and then some.

The starting gravity was a little higher than expected, probably around 1.052.  I was shooting for a 1.050 but no harm there.

I put the carboy in the beer fridge and I have been slowly reducing the temperature over the last few days.  I think we are sitting at 45°F right now and we started at 60°F.  By the weekend, it will be down to 35°F and I will let it stay there for a week or so.

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4 Comments

  1. jim

    I hope it turns out good! I’ll check back to find out!

  2. Thanks Jim. I need to start the bottle process tonight.

  3. Last week, I attempted to make a Cali-Common. That style came to an abrupt halt when I realized my Wyeast had failed. It was an old packet and it didn’t expand when I smacked it (also made a starter). I got nervous after a day of no activity so I contacted my brew store and he told me to pitch something in there ASAP. I picked up an American Ale yeast and pitched it directly in the primary. There was excellent activity for a few days and now it seems the yeast is done its job. There is a lot of yeast in there now (dead and dormant), so, should I rack to a secondary ASAP or just leave it in the primary for another week or two and bottle from there?
    How’s your beer coming along?

  4. I would just let it lie.

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