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4) Do what many many of us do and skip secondary all together and opt instead for the long primary....I leave mine in primary for a month, then bottle. I have found my beer is much better for doing that.

well with the white labs its recommended that you make a yeast starter a day in advance but with the dry you don't have to really you don't even have to reconstitute it most people do but i don't think it has to be. but it looks like you payed extra for the white labs so i would prefer using that. i dont know though how well it will work with out a starter since your gonna brew today.

Quote: Originally Posted by ziggy13 Also, why would the beer still have been fermenting the day after I transferred to the secondary but not 2 days after? Because you removed it from the majority of the yeast. Yeast has to reproduce before beginning fermenting. If you've removed much of the yeast, the remaining yeast may not be able to do the job. It's probably still fermenting, but so slowly that you don't see it.

I would not dry hop a stout. I've tasted many stouts that were and I have yet to find a hop aroma that complements a good stout.

Quote: Originally Posted by mkling I think the cooking analogy made here is a good one. I cook well, but being a decent cook doesn't diminish my appreciation for going out to a nice restaurant at all. I often love others' cooking just as I often (but not always) really like my own cooking. And when I cook, it is better tastes better than many restaurants that I might go to and worse than some others. My brewing is the same --...

Well, you should go ahead and ignore the frequency of the bubbles. Any airlock activity is simply a co-sign that can give a hint that something's taking place. The far more reliable (indeed, the only scientific method) of knowing when the fermentation is finished is to take regular readings with your hydrometer. When three consecutive days' readings are identical, then this is a good sign that the fermentation has stopped. If...

I've never used Fermcap but I've heard a lot of folks give it a big thumbs up with no effect on head. It settles out in the primary.

+1 to what Revvy says. If you really want to secondary, it is not a problems using a 6 gallon. You will knock the CO2 out of suspension when you rack and it will re-blanket your beer with its protective layer.

Pretty sure you are not suppose to stir the yeast in.

All you need is the wheat extract, no grains. Crystal is really out of style. Bittering hops will need to go to 1 ounce. 3068 is your Bavarian style yeast which to me is the yeast for the style.