Scott, thanks for the help!
I read a lot about secondary fermentation and I know that now a lot of people prefere to only use the primary fermenter, no secondary. I have no problem with that. Furthermore, I like cloudly beers, so even if racking to a secondary fermenter helps clearing the beer (I know some say it doesn't!), I don't care!
But I'm trying to follow the recipe as much as I can. And, above all, I want to see by myself if racking to a secondary fermenter really makes any difference or not! So yeah, I'll rack this batch. But when? I thought the "4 days" of the recipe was a little bit too short so I thaugh maybe 6 days would be ok.
I know the only real way of knowing if the fermentation is over is to check the gravity over 2-3 days and if it doesn't change, the fermentation is mainly over. But is it really important to wait for the fermentation to be over before racking to a seconday fermenter? Why? Since there will be an airlock on the secondary, I don't see why a fermentation still going on would be a problem?
Also, for my target gravity, I have to admit this is something I didn't really look into for this first brewing. My readings (very approximative) are :
- Before the boil : 1.055
- After the wort has been boiled and cooled : 1.041
But I do not know what final gravity I am targetting exactly! This is one of the reasons I'm following a recipe for this first batch : I do not understand everything well, yet!