Well, the krausen has sunk, and the airlock is bubbling at a rate of once every 15 seconds or so. I'll move the beer to a secondary fermentation vessel soon. To save myself some cleaning, this usually means going straight to the keg, and letting it condition for a few days at room temperature, then for a fortnight or so in the fridge, prior to carbonation from CO2 cylinder. The only drawback here is the yeast sediment in the keg. If I use a true secondary vessel, then most yeast will be left behind when the beer is transfered to the keg. In saving on the cleaning, I lose a glass or two of beer to extreme cloudiness.....
I suppose if I get my timing spot on, the secondary fermentation could carbonate the keg directly aka Real Ale. So, I think I'll hold off on the cylinder carbonation and firstly test the pressue of the keg, to see what the secondary ferment generated.
I threw the dry hop bag into the glass carboy yesterday. I should have thought about this beforehand. The weave of the bag is so tight that it floats quite high on the beer. So how's the hop aroma going to get into the liquid, I wonder ? Hmmmm.... I should have punctured a hole in the bag before throwing it in.
So, I did a bit of undignified jabbing of the bag with the (sanitised) handle of my plastic spoon. This seems to have dented it somewhat, and it's sitting lower in the liquid now. There was a little bit of splashing, which is undesirable at this stage of the process, but hopefully the headspace of the carboy is mostly CO2, so I doubt much oxidation damage is likely to occur. Not good, nonetheless.
Another thought.... the bag contains hop pellets, not flowers. The carboy already has pellet residue sitting at the bottom, so I could also have just ripped it open and tossed the pellets in as is. Plus (now I think about it) I have to somehow extricate the used bag from the carboy when done, which will be no simple task considering the thin neck of the carboy (and it's weight).
Live and learn......
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