Rack to Secondary or not?

[Corinbis]

Hi All,

I have a Festival Pride of London Porter on the go at the moment, fermentation has been going well in the brew-fridge and after 9 days I put the hops in. The instructions say leave the hops in for 5 days, however I'm going away for work from tomorrow for 5 days (late notice) and I had been planning to keg and bottle it tomorrow (5th day of hops).

So my question is do I just leave it sitting on the hops for longer (10 days) or should I rack to a secondary now and bottle it next week?

Would leaving it on the hops add any off flavours (Porter) and also would racking it to a secondary leave it open to oxidisation (I've never used a secondary before and have read it could be an issue without a closed transfer system)

I plan to bottle 7 or 8 litres, so if I did rack to a secondary would I be better racking it straight to the Keg rather than to another fermentation bucket? And then just adding sugar and bottle straight from the keg to the bottles next week, to save 'another' transfer and possibly more oxygen exposure?

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[crowcrow]

Hum, without the dry hop, I'd def say just leave it alone, but if I were you I'd rack to another vessel to save the hops from spoiling, if you can I'd drop the temp right down so you get 5 days of cold crashing.

 

[Gerryjo]

Why not just remove the hops in primary and cold crash, that way it's ready when you return.

 

[Corinbis]

Thanks for the response CrowCrow.
I hadn’t thought about transferring and then crashing as it’s a Porter, but I guess there would be no harm in doing that.

Gerryjo, sadly the hops are loose in there not in a bag so I can’t remove them, if that’s what you meant?

Or did you mean cold crash in primary to remove the hops? If so would the hops still not give off bad flavours if they are sat in the trub for 5 days, even though it’s a cold crash trub?

Thanks for the help.

 

[crowcrow]

I crash anything I brew, now that I can, and get lovely clear beers without finings. I also dry hop loose like you have Corinbis, I never got on with bags and found dry bits when I removed them.

 

[Gerryjo]

Thanks for the response CrowCrow.
I hadn’t thought about transferring and then crashing as it’s a Porter, but I guess there would be no harm in doing that.

Gerryjo, sadly the hops are loose in there not in a bag so I can’t remove them, if that’s what you meant?

Or did you mean cold crash in primary to remove the hops? If so would the hops still not give off bad flavours if they are sat in the trub for 5 days, even though it’s a cold crash trub?

Thanks for the help.

As they are pellets simply cold crash for the five days at around 2 - 3° which would help slow the release of any oils in the hops as well as clear your beer..