Brewer's Best Robust Porter Take 2....Part....2

Yesterday I decided to transport my beer to the glass carboy for secondary fermentation. To give you a brief recap, I discovered the closet I've been using for fermentation wasn't keeping an optimum temperature. Ideally, the temperature should be between 60F and 70F for primary fermentation. Many local homebrew stores sell adhesive thermometer strips you can stick to the fermentation bucket to monitor temperatures. The first couple days I noticed the temperature was closer to 80F. I did have some active fermentation for a few days, so I don't think it affected the process too much. But what can you do... you know what they say... RDWHAHB!! I am, however, devising plans to construct a fermentation chamber since this is the coolest spot in the house. A fermentation chamber will give me consistent temperatures and result in better tasting beers...so I'm told. Here's some pics:

After cleaning the carboy it's time to sanitize. Notice the newly purchased carboy handle to make transportation much easier. THIS is highly recommended :)



Black Gold



Here's the hydrometer reading after one week. I was right around 1.014 and hoping to be closer to 1.008 by bottling time.



Siphoning from primary to secondary.



Almost done...I can happily report this carboy made it to the closet safe and sound.

That's it for now. I'm hoping to bottle this batch next week at some point. Hopefully I'll consistently see a lower reading on the hydrometer for a few days. This will be an indication fermentation is complete and it's time to tranport the beer for bottle conditioning. In the meantime I'll be preparing by cleaning all those bottles needed for the last step.