is two weeks too long?

Hello. Im a little concerned. Im doing a holiday recipe, a rather large beer, (1.100 og). Did everything according to my calculations, got it into a fermenter, pitched a nice sized yeast stater. Right away this thing went ballistic one me. Within like 6 hours this was ready to blow the lid off. That was 16 days ago. Today, I still have airlock activity, bubbling about every 35 seconds. I know its about at the end, but is it normal for there to be airlock activity this long? I've never done as big of a beer as this, and I've never had airlock activity more than four or five days. Is something else going on, or is it just fermenting out? Thanks for any advise.

Let it roll, it's a big beer. It's done when it's done, don't fret.

Thats normal, my ipa is 1.096 and the yeast chew for a while like that. Its a huge buffet in there just give it its time.

Ignore the airlock and trust your hydrometer. My airlocks will bubble once or twice a minute if a low pressure system rolls in after fermentation is done.

K. Just needed a little validation on that, fist big beer and all. At the start of this, I was thinking 3 weeks in the primary, now, its looking like a month to 5 weeks before its ready for the secondary and fruit. Thanks for the help guys!

homebrewertodd said:

K. Just needed a little validation on that, fist big beer and all. At the start of this, I was thinking 3 weeks in the primary, now, its looking like a month to 5 weeks before its ready for the secondary and fruit. Thanks for the help guys!

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Don't be afraid to let your big beer have longer than the 5 weeks even. I did an average beer and let it have 9 weeks in the fermenter. When bottled and carbed it was really smooth, no extra time for it to mature in the bottle.

Yep, let it sit until you see nothing. Take a reading. Let it sit for a few more days and take another. If it's still, then think about secondary/bottling. Had a friend do a quad a while back and it was crazy for a month in primary. I mostly leave all my beers for a month now at least before doing anything to them. My session pale ale sat for probably 8 weeks before bottling and it was great.

Well, I got brave and took a reading today. It's down to 1.016! That already puts me at over 10% abv!! I'm shooting for 11. I'm going to give it another week or two, then secondary it with the cherries. tasted it also. Not bad, very green tasting, and kind of an alcohol taste, but I figure that will mellow.

Depending what temp you mashed at it may be finished at this point. In either case I don't see why you couldn't give it a few days to clean up then move it onto fruit verse waiting another 2 weeks.

This was an extract with specialties. But, the airlock is still going,, so I'm going to give it a week or so. I want to make sure the ferment is done before I put it into a mini ferment with the cherries.

If you wait 2 days and take another reading and get the same reading then it's done. There's a lot of CO2 left in solution after fermentation. Go by your hydrometer not your airlock.