What to Do: Fermentation at 12 days, bubbling more than 1 per second...

I brewed this beer Sunday, March 6th.

This was taken this morning... The video is really dark, but that white krausen is actually CO2, I can literally watch it bubble up like I just opened a bottle of BMC


My recipe was:

AZ_IPA's Tap Room American Brown with some changes.

9 lbs 2-row
2 lb Munich
1 lb Crystal 80L
0.5 lb chocolate malt
5 lb Honey
2 lb Brown Sugar

1.5oz Willamette @ 60
1oz Mt. Hood @ 30
1.5oz Willamette @ 10

My OG was 1.069 @ 6.5 gallons

I pitched a smack pack of Ringwood Ale yeast and after a very slow ferm, I pitched a smack pack of Abbey Ale yeast early Tuesday a.m.

This has been fermenting for 11 days now and very actively fermenting this steady for 9 days now. I'm hesitant to take a gravity reading through all that krausen and trub with it still fermenting like that, but I also don't want a 1.000 FG beer. Any thoughts?

Bubbles don't mean jack! Take a hydrometer reading if you are concerned, but don't do anything crazy without knowing whether or not your beer is actually still fermenting. Maybe it is a slow ferment, or maybe it is long since done.

Edit: what do you mean by "that white krausen is actually CO2"?

The 1" thick white ring on the top of the carboy that looks like krausen is actively bubbling co2.... It doesnt look like it in the video, but its bubbling up.

give it another week or 2

Take a hydro reading if you really want to know...or wait til the krausen falls.....But the main answer if you wanna know what to do, or what you beer is doing...take a hydrometer reading...

Good things come to those that wait. Patience is king here.

like it's been said... take a hydro reading.. also 5lbs of honey.. that could take longer to ferment.

lastsecondapex said:

The 1" thick white ring on the top of the carboy that looks like krausen is actively bubbling co2.... It doesnt look like it in the video, but its bubbling up.

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I can't really see the video, so I'm still not sure what you mean. I don't mean this to be pedantic, but CO2 is an invisible gas. Do you mean that the white ring is beer foam being driven up by CO2? That's pretty much what krausen is in normal circumstances, too, though this might be more visibly reactive. It sounds like you've got an unusual fermentation on your hands, likely the result of the enormous amount of honey you've got in there.

I didn't notice the honey before. You probably will end up with a 1.000 FG beer with 7lbs of simple sugars. This recipe is quite unorthodox, almost more like a braggot.

lastsecondapex said:

My recipe was:

AZ_IPA's Tap Room American Brown with some changes.

9 lbs 2-row
2 lb Munich
1 lb Crystal 80L
0.5 lb chocolate malt
5 lb Honey
2 lb Brown Sugar

1.5oz Willamette @ 60
1oz Mt. Hood @ 30
1.5oz Willamette @ 10

My OG was 1.069 @ 6.5 gallons

I pitched a smack pack of Ringwood Ale yeast and after a very slow ferm, I pitched a smack pack of Abbey Ale yeast early Tuesday a.m.

This has been fermenting for 11 days now and very actively fermenting this steady for 9 days now. I'm hesitant to take a gravity reading through all that krausen and trub with it still fermenting like that, but I also don't want a 1.000 FG beer. Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

I really hope that OG was not including the honey and brown sugar. If it was, then you had about 43% efficiency. at 72% efficiency you'd have an OG of 1.089 for 6.5 gallons. Either way, that's gonna take while to ferment and it's gonna ferment pretty dry. Maybe not down to 1.000 but it's gonna be close. adding the abbey ale yeast is what will eat ALL those sugars and leave it dry.

One more thing...an OG of 1.069 looked really low for all that honey, so I punched it out and the only way you could end up with a starting gravity of 1.069 with those ingredients would be with a 40% mash efficiency. How sure are you of these numbers? My the looks of things, you might be getting nearly 2/3rds of your fermentables from honey and brown sugar.

Edit: beat to the punch by mysticmead. At least I know I'm not talkin' crazy here.

you also didn't mention if you made a starter or not. if not, that was a very sugar heavy environment for the yeast to start off in..

MalFet said:

One more thing...an OG of 1.069 looked really low for all that honey, so I punched it out and the only way you could end up with a starting gravity of 1.069 with those ingredients would be with a 40% mash efficiency. How sure are you of these numbers? My the looks of things, you might be getting nearly 2/3rds of your fermentables from honey and brown sugar.

Edit: beat to the punch by mysticmead. At least I know I'm not talkin' crazy here.

Click to expand...

I know it's really low, I am moving way from the the BIAB method for my AG batches on my next brew...

I BIAB and get 72-75%... don't blame the method.. it might be the crush.. it might be the water..

Thats alot of sugar. I reckon it will ferment for a while.

Sent from my iPhone using HB Talk

lastsecondapex said:

I know it's really low, I am moving way from the the BIAB method for my AG batches on my next brew...

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Even a completely unoptimized BIAB should be above the mid-60s. Properly done it can hit 80s%. 40% efficiency means something is wrong.

Keep us posted. I'll be curious to hear how this turns out.

Checked gravity and its only at 1.040 as of yesterday evening. I did realize that I hadn't done my adjusted gravity from the sample temp being warm on my brew day. It's calculated to be 1.075, which still is not great (or even good) efficiency. I even mashed this at 150, instead of 154 to see if I could improve my efficiency. My first AG, I did a 75 minute decoction mash and had 78% efficiency (malt bought at a different store, so maybe its the grain I'm getting....)

I recently had a Golden Strong fermented with WLP 550 at controlled temps starting around 67 and slowly ramping to 75ish go for about 10-11 days with CO2 actively being released through a blowoff!!! Those Belgian yeasts are workhorses when treated properly. The Belgian yeast with all those simple sugars and a controlled fermentation temp add up to a long, steady fermentation and a REALLY dry brew...I wouldn't even bother taking another hydro sample for at least 2 or 3 more weeks to give it time to finish and the yeast to clean up after themselves.

The yeastie beasties are workin', let 'em do their thing

lastsecondapex said:

Checked gravity and its only at 1.040 as of yesterday evening. I did realize that I hadn't done my adjusted gravity from the sample temp being warm on my brew day. It's calculated to be 1.075, which still is not great (or even good) efficiency. I even mashed this at 150, instead of 154 to see if I could improve my efficiency. My first AG, I did a 75 minute decoction mash and had 78% efficiency (malt bought at a different store, so maybe its the grain I'm getting....)

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Hydrometers are quite inaccurate when far outside their calibration range, so I wouldn't trust the 1.075 either. In any case, as others have said it doesn't sound like there's anything strange going on with your fermentation (but you might want to look into your mashing, yeast handling, and recipe design). Expect a long ferment and a bone dry beer.

I think you've more or less made a braggot instead of a beer because you got a low efficiency from the malt and the efficiency from the sugar in the honey was unaffected. It's not simply a beer with honey as an adjunct, and because of that it will take longer to ferment.

If bubbles are rising to the surface, it is still fermenting. If the airlock is bubbling once a second, it is fermenting vigorously.

Well,

My worst fears were realized... I checked the gravity this morning and almost could not believe it- it was still fermenting and the airlock was bubbling at about 10-12 bubbles/minute. I racked it to secondary, but is there a way to generate some sweetness again without starting a second fermentation.



If it's blurry, the fg is 1.002


To avoid the hydrometer-calibration questions, here it is in tap water.

lastsecondapex said:

Well,

My worst fears were realized... I checked the gravity this morning and almost could not believe it- it was still fermenting and the airlock was bubbling at about 10-12 bubbles/minute. I racked it to secondary, but is there a way to generate some sweetness again without starting a second fermentation.

Click to expand...

You could back sweeten with some splenda or lactose. Expect it to keep going, though. It will probably drop even further. TBH, I'm not sure there's much that will save this recipe from tasting like a braggot, since that's what it is. How'd it taste?

It tasted like a hot Terrapin Hop Karma- not bad, but very dry. I would imagine that without some sucralose like you said the 9.5% abv will keep a harsh burn.