vdread

Recipes 

brewed a double chocolate stout and let it sit in primary for 7 days, racked to secondary on 15oz of cherries. that was exactly 10 days ago. the bubbling has been very slow, but steady over the past 10 days. can i bottle any time soon or should i wait it out? is this normal? it's only my 3rd brew. any help or insight appreciated.

og1050
fg1016 after 48hrs
wyeast 1968 London ESB smack pack

gregpio85

Recipes 

Let it go. Cherries add sugar. That will begin fermentation again and since you racked to secondary, you probably lost a number of yeast which is why you're fermentation is slow going.

A good rule of thumb is that when you've had three days of consistent gravity readings, your fermentation is over.

By bottling now, you risk your bottles continuing to ferment and even explode. Don't risk it. let everything mellow out. Your bottles and taste buds will thank you.

__________________
"Vision without execution is hallucination."
-Thomas Edison

scottland

Recipes 

1. Bubbles don't mean anything. If your secondary warms up slightly, warmer liquid can't hold as much c02 as cold liquid, so c02 escapes. Meaning there could be zero fermentation still happening, and you can still see bubbles.

2. As said above, cherries have sugar, the yeast are going to munch of that. Take a gravity reading, and then take another reading in 3-4 days, if it dropped, your beer is still fermenting.

3. You've got a double chocolate cherry stout, that thing is going to need some time to mellow.

My advice, walk away. Forget all about that beer for at least 4 more weeks. Big beers like that need plenty of time to age.