jimmythefoot

Recipes 

so i just racked this wheat onto blueberries ok. how long should i wait before i start messing with it in the case i see no bubbles/secondary fermentation starting? also what are my options to get those yeasties feeding on the blueberries?

basic info:
OG=1049
present G=1016
blueberries=2 lbs
temp=68 degres +/- 2 degrees

Revvy

Recipes 

You "just" racked it. What's that mean, 5 minutes ago? 5 days? The yeast knows what it needs to do, it fermented your beer didn't it? Were you at terminal gravity when you racked? For how many days? They may be somewhat dormant and may need to wake back up.....

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jimmythefoot

Recipes 

i racked it last night. sorry about that detail. it did ferment the beer.i am not going of a recipe so i don,t reallu have a terminal gravity to go off of. it had been going for seventeen days and i had to rack it cause my roommate made a batch but didn't have a lumen stopper that fit his bucket so i gave him mine and just racked mine to the secondary.

if no activity in say two to three days i do i wake them up? looks like 6" of air space in the carboy. i am thinking of the air and what it could do if i see no activity. should i just relax?

pericles

Recipes 

There's no guarantee you'll see any activity. Racking onto fruit will sometimes restart fermentation, because of the fermentable sugars contained in the fruit. Because there is often substantially less sugar in the fruit than in the wort, though, the second round of active fermentation is often less vigorous than the first. You may see little or no air-lock activity (which is a poor gauge of fermentation anyway!)

If your beer reached a steady FG in a primary fermenting vessel, then there's no need to wake your yeast up in secondary. Just give the beer another week in the secondary vessel and take a second hydrometer reading. Then check again 24 hours later; if the readings are the same, you're ready to bottle/keg.

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Primary 2: Kitchen Sink IPA
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johngault007

Recipes 

I haven't messed around with fruit in the secondary, so can't be sure about it. But I rarely see much going on during any secondary fermentation. I try to give the yeast enough time in primary (4-7) days, depending on OG, and then rack to secondary to get it off of the left over trub and dormant/dead yeast. I know it's not necessary, but it gives me self-purpose to mess with it during long waits.

binaryvisions

Recipes 

You didn't have an expected terminal gravity. You can always find out if the beer is done fermenting, i.e. the "terminal" gravity has been reached for the batch. Just take a few hydrometer readings over the course of 3 or 4 days. If the gravity isn't budging, it's probably at its terminal gravity.

In any event, your fermentation is all but finished. There will be a few sugars from the blueberries that the yeast will probably wake up and consume, but you shouldn't expect a lot of fermentation activity. Comparatively, you dumped several pounds of dissolved and almost entirely fermentable sugars in there and now you're looking for activity off whatever sugars the yeast can glean off a couple pounds of blueberries. There won't be much.