Tactical Error; what's my best move now?

Hi,

I started fermenting 9 days ago. All looks good. But I overthought/underthought the process, and am fermenting in my bottling bucket (having forgotten that I need to mix the sugar in before bottling.

I was not planning to transfer to a secondary fermenter, but I could.

I'm brewing a European-style brown ale.

Should I transfer to secondary now, so that I can transfer back into the bottling bucket in two weeks or so, to bottle, or should I just wait out the additional two weeks, and then transfer to another bucket, and bottle from the siphon hose rather than the spigot?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks.

Mark

I saw some food grade buckets for sale at Lowes yesterday for $3 or $4. Pick one up, drill a hole, buy a new spigot. Problem solved!

(It never hurts to have an extra bucket!)

I would rack to secondary and let it clear and then go rack to bottle

I wouldn't rack the beer anywhere till it was at FG. But it'll clear just as well in primary. so the choice is yours. I'd leave it in primary till it settles out clear or slightly misty. You'll have to rack the beer out to clean the bottling bucket anyway. Then make your priming solution & carefully rack the beer onto it in the newly cleaned & sanitized bottling bucket. Just be careful when racking not to oxydize it.

unionrdr said:

I wouldn't rack the beer anywhere till it was at FG. But it'll clear just as well in primary. so the choice is yours. I'd leave it in primary till it settles out clear or slightly misty. You'll have to rack the beer out to clean the bottling bucket anyway. Then make your priming solution & carefully rack the beer onto it in the newly cleaned & sanitized bottling bucket. Just be careful when racking not to oxydize it.

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This certainly is what I'm inclined to do. It seems that the only risk of this is two transfers, but with careful siphoning, that really shouldn't be a problem.

Yeah,as long as your siphoning system fits tight & draws no air,it should be fine with no splashing or the like. It's also the no spend extra bucks way,utilizing the equipment you have,which is of course more efficient use of hardware. Not to mention,learning to do more with what you have.

you can also rack to whatever other container and slap the bottling wand on the syphon, works just fine

dcp27 said:

you can also rack to whatever other container and slap the bottling wand on the syphon, works just fine

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This is what I just did, and it worked just perfectly.

Thanks!