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Best time to rack into secondary
For most beers, racking to a secondary fermenter is not required. You typically secondary a beer to condition and clarify the beer. If you can deal with cloudy beer, then there really isn't a need to secondary. I didn't start using a secodary until about this time last year, and all my beers tasted fine, some were clear, some not. Since I have started using a secondary, I can't say that the flavor has improved (until I went to all grain), but the clarity has gotten better.
I rarely use a hydrometer to monitor fermentation, as I don't like to worry about one more possible way of contaminating my beer. When I secondary, I leave the beer in the primary for about a week to whenever I can get to racking. When I only use a primary, I bottle after 8 - 10 days without ever having a bottle bomb. A lot of people like to have a little active fermentation going when they rack to their secondary, as this will build up CO2 to drive out the O2 in the carboy, which helps prevent oxidation.
Exactly, secondary is mostly for an extended fermentation, clearing, or conditioning. For example you might want to dry hop an IPA or you might want to age a Russian Imperial Stout, etc. I know plenty of people though that only primary ferment and if they want a more clear beer they do one of two things: either leave the beer in the primary for an extra week or so, or they rack the beer to their bottling bucket, clean out the primary, and rack the beer back to the clean primary (but at that point you might as well secondary).
In fact, the owner of my LHBS actually only primary ferments and he does it in his brewing pot, just puts the lid on it once it's cooled and he's added the yeast. He never has any issues.
DT
Hi Car Boy,
I know LOTS of brewers that never use a secondary, but they normaly make only "lawnmower" 1.040 OG beers. Nothing wrong with that! The reason I secondary EVERYTHING is I use a lot of specialty grains in my brews and the secondary and keg conditioning let all the flavors mingle and get happy with each other... they take some time finding thier "comfort" zones with each other. Thats one of the reasons the last bottle from the batch you open is almost always the best one! If you follow good sanitization practices theres very little danger of contamination. As far as knowing when to rack to the secondary, theres a couple of things to keep in mind...(1) is the fermentation over? The ONLY way to know is gravity. (2)How "clean" do you want the beer. I just put up a big cream ale. OG was 1.064. After 12 days, it was down to 1.018. I racked to secondary last night and will give it 14 days there before kegging where it gets another week @ 15lbs of CO2 pressure but thats another story.... Anyway, it should drop to about 1.016 (or slightly less) in that 14 days. my rule of thumb is, ferment almost all the way in the primary, secondary is more for finnish work. A good experiment is to rack 2.5 gallons to a secondary 3 gallon carboy and bottle the other 2.5 gallons. wait 2 weeks and bottle the brew out of the secondary, wait another week and open 1 bottle from each. I'm sure you will be able to tell them apart! Even if it's yellow, fizzy lawnmower beer!
Prost!
Dan
If you're kegging don't go to any extra effort with a secondary. I let all my ales sit in the primary for two weeks, and four weeks for a lager, then I transfer straight to the keg. The keg might then be around for 2-6 weeks before it goes into the kegerator. The key is just not to rush them out of primary, the yeast need time to finish, even after airlock activity has slowed, one way to have a funny tasting beer is to rush it into the secondary or bottling too quickly.
I was at my local brew store today asking this same question.
Their advice was to rack into your secondary as soon as the frothy foamy stuff all sinks into the beer because once that has settled into the bottom of your jimmyjohn (carboy) then it can start to break down, decompose, and contaminate your beer.
The thing I'm finding quite obvious is that every brewer has his/her own opinion, and i'm going to have to find what works best for my equipment, my environment, my taste... 
For example, my goal right now is just to make beer that's drinkable. My very first batch ever is in the carboy. My other goal is to keep my cost per bottle down. That means, if I'm going to condition my beer, I'm going to siphon it out of the carboy into a sanatized bucket, clean and sanatize the carboy, then put the beer back into said carboy. It's what I've got to work with.
then it can start to break down, decompose, and contaminate your beer.
Yeah, but it will take longer than 14 days and probably longer than 60 before that will happen. You're right, as many opinions as there are brewers.
Yeah, I think the guy I've been talking to there is a bit of a perfectionist~I bet his beer tastes really good though. He's a stickler for clenliness, top notch ingredients, etc... 
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