Autumn Amber Ale Slow Fermentation

So, after resisting to start a new post and searching/reading other posts, I broke down.

I brewed an Autumn Amber Ale extract kit from Midwest Supplies with Munton's dry yeast on 5/21/11. It started bubbling the day after I brewed then stopped.

- left it in the primary for about 10 days temperature ranged from 64-70 degrees
- transferred to secondary on day 10 5/31/11
- after a few days in secondary, bubbles started to appear at the top of the beer; gradually more and more bubbles developed (see image)
- after a few more days the airlock began to bubble
- after 3 weeks the bubbles at the top of the beer have reduced quite a bit, however the airlock is bubbling once every 1-2 minutes and there is some sediment at the top as well

I know I should just RDWHAHB, but I just don't understand why it is still bubbling? It seems like it is still fermenting, but I am not sure. I am just wondering because it has been over a month and I figured it should be done by now.

I am assuming I should wait for all the bubbles to go away before I bottle?

The only advice I can give you is to take a gravity reading. Then you'll know if you're still mid fermentation or if you've reached FG. My guess is your beer is long done and what you're seeing is simply outgassing due to temperature changes.

Yea that's true. I really do need to take a gravity reading. Although I didn't take a starting gravity reading so will I be able to calculate the %ABV still?

If it is just outgassing would there still be sediment at the top? I thought the whole point of a secondary was for the sediment to fall to the bottom, but there is some still floating at the top.

Some sediment will just be of lower density than water and will have a tendency to float. Also, CO2 bubbles may be sticking to some of the sediment causing it to have higher buoyancy. When you're racking to your bottling bucket or keg, just put the tip of your racking cane in the middle of your beer so you don't siphon the top or bottom sediment and gently move it down as the level goes down. Floaties are no sweat.

I took a gravity reading last night and was at 1.010, which is just about what it should be. Although there seemed to be some carbonation in it already, is it still okay to bottle? I just don't want any bottle bombs.

It should be fine to bottle. The CO2 already in the beer is most likely at low pressure. You'll knock any excess out of solution during the process of transferring. Just take into account the temperature of the beer when you choose how much priming sugar to add. The temperature of the beer will tell us how much CO2 already dissolved in the beer. Warm beer will have less CO2 and vice versa, cold beer will have more CO2 to begin with.

It's also possible that in racking to secondary you gave your yeast an extra "boost" of O2 that helped them gain some activity. Since we don't know what the FG was before racking we can't tell if the yeast still had fermentable sugars left to process in the secondary. Hard to imagine a significant amount of carbonation occurring with no-sugar added and in that large of a vessel.

And don't worry about the floaties, racking off the yeast cake and trub has already significantly reduced the amount of sediment in your batch.