Hi guys,
This is my very first batch and I am very confused. I have done many hours of search and reading and I haven't found a case like mine so bear with me. Here it goes.
Ingredients:
5.6 lbs DME Pilsen light
1 lb Crystal II L65 specialty grains
0.5 Galena @ 60 min
0.5 Cascade @ 10 min
1 tsp irish moss @ 10 min
Safbrew T-58
3 gal boil.
Pitched at 78F. OG = 1.052
Sanitized obsessively, aerated obsessively.
Airlock activity started about an hour later and wort temp started to climb until it went off the strip thermometer which has a max temp of 78. I did the wet t shirt thing and next morning it was at around 78 and bubbling like crazy, about 5 bubbles per second, about an inch kreuzen, and lots of movement of particles within the wort. I considered the temp was still to high so I moved it to a place with a nice draft so I could get more evaporation on the wet and the temp started to come down. Later in the day I checked and the wort temp had reached 74 degrees and activity started to go down. By the afternoon, activity virtually stopped and the kreuzen dropped back into the wort. I read that fermentation could finish in as little as 24 hours so I wasn't worried. I left it in primary two full weeks and I decided to open it up to measure gravity and to add some dry hopping. Gravity was 1.020 and something interesting is that it was completely cloudy. It tasted great though. No off flavors what so ever.
I read that some extract brews do stop @ 1.020 so I added my dry hopping pellets and put the airlock back on to give it another week for a total of 3 before bottling.
The next day after measuring gravity and dry hopping, the airlock was producing a bubble every 14 seconds, and there was a 1/4 inch of foam (don't know if you could call it kreuzen). The next day (today, two days after measuring and dry hopping) the airlock is doing a bubble every 4 seconds.
I read in a few posts that airlock activity has nothing to do with actual yeast activity (fermentation) and that it is only releasing excess CO2. At first I thought it kinda sounded reasonable, having moved the carboy and adding hop pellets, but having the airlock pick up this much after two days makes me think that there is definitely some fermentation going on.
Has anybody ever had fermentation stuck after two weeks in primary? Can anybody confirm that I might be having more fermentation at the time (no I am not going to open it up and take a gravity measurement and risk infecting my first batch of beer). I plan to give it one more week, for a total of 3 weeks primary and bottle.
Thoughts?
This is my very first batch and I am very confused. I have done many hours of search and reading and I haven't found a case like mine so bear with me. Here it goes.
Ingredients:
5.6 lbs DME Pilsen light
1 lb Crystal II L65 specialty grains
0.5 Galena @ 60 min
0.5 Cascade @ 10 min
1 tsp irish moss @ 10 min
Safbrew T-58
3 gal boil.
Pitched at 78F. OG = 1.052
Sanitized obsessively, aerated obsessively.
Airlock activity started about an hour later and wort temp started to climb until it went off the strip thermometer which has a max temp of 78. I did the wet t shirt thing and next morning it was at around 78 and bubbling like crazy, about 5 bubbles per second, about an inch kreuzen, and lots of movement of particles within the wort. I considered the temp was still to high so I moved it to a place with a nice draft so I could get more evaporation on the wet and the temp started to come down. Later in the day I checked and the wort temp had reached 74 degrees and activity started to go down. By the afternoon, activity virtually stopped and the kreuzen dropped back into the wort. I read that fermentation could finish in as little as 24 hours so I wasn't worried. I left it in primary two full weeks and I decided to open it up to measure gravity and to add some dry hopping. Gravity was 1.020 and something interesting is that it was completely cloudy. It tasted great though. No off flavors what so ever.
I read that some extract brews do stop @ 1.020 so I added my dry hopping pellets and put the airlock back on to give it another week for a total of 3 before bottling.
The next day after measuring gravity and dry hopping, the airlock was producing a bubble every 14 seconds, and there was a 1/4 inch of foam (don't know if you could call it kreuzen). The next day (today, two days after measuring and dry hopping) the airlock is doing a bubble every 4 seconds.
I read in a few posts that airlock activity has nothing to do with actual yeast activity (fermentation) and that it is only releasing excess CO2. At first I thought it kinda sounded reasonable, having moved the carboy and adding hop pellets, but having the airlock pick up this much after two days makes me think that there is definitely some fermentation going on.
Has anybody ever had fermentation stuck after two weeks in primary? Can anybody confirm that I might be having more fermentation at the time (no I am not going to open it up and take a gravity measurement and risk infecting my first batch of beer). I plan to give it one more week, for a total of 3 weeks primary and bottle.
Thoughts?
