Airlock bubbling but Gravity is steady

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jrpcwp

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I have a stout in a secondary carboy, that will not stop bubbling, even though the gravity seems to stop dropping. Should I bottle or wait out the bubbles?

OG 1.080
Yeast White Labs - English Ale
Temp 71 to 72 degrees (pretty steady)
G at time of secondary 1.034
present gravity is 1.027, been there for 10 days.

There are fine bubbles on the top of the beer. I can see them popping and being replaced by new. The airlock lets out a bubble about every 60 seconds. Looks just like it is fermenting, but I just checked the gravity and it has not changed in 10 days.
 
It's probably just residual CO2 coming out of solution. Your hydrometer is the only accurate gauge of fermentation activity.
 
Bubbling just means it's bubbling. It isn't necessarily related to fermentation or gravity changes--changes in temperature, air pressure (weather fronts moving through), physical agitation, and a whole host of other things can make an airlock bubble.

Use the hydrometer to gauge fermentation. Use the airlock to keep air out.
 
Other than unnecessarily moving it to secondary before it was finished, you should be fine and it's probably now done. WLP002 doesn't attenuate very well, so a rough calculation says you had about 66% attenuation. That falls within the range of 63-70% for that yeast strain, so I'd say as long as your readings are no longer dropping you're probably finished and it's just gas coming out of solution due to pressure and temp changes.
 

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