1st Brew Advice

I brewed an all Amarillo IPA extract last saturday.Temp corrected OG came to 1.071:rockin:. Pitched US-04 at 10:30pm with an air lock.Sunday 6:30am it woke me up going nuts.By 6:45am rigged up a blow off hose and all was good and it has been "VERY" active every since.It has since slowed down (thank god!),but still several bubbles per minute. The question is should I wait tell it stops bubbling to completly to take an other gravity reading?I feel like I should wait a few more days.How often do you take reading on active fermentations?

I would give it at least 3 weeks. That will allow for the yeast to finish and clean up after themselves. I don't do readings on active fermentation anymore. A one month primary and into the bottle, unless I'm using oak, coffee, or dry hopping.

don't even bother with readings at this point. with an IPA you want to let it sit in primary for 3-4 weeks anyway

If i see good activity,especially like yours i dont even take a gravity.The only time i do is after 3 weeks when i bottle. I usually rouse it a little the last week and up the temp a little(probably unneccesary) then third week- check the gravity -and if i dont like the reading ill wait(havent had to yet) to bottle it. Ive seen no reason to check it this way,ive only used dry yeast and ive usually heard of more difficult times with liquid yeast a little more. And with overactivity-havent had to use a blow-off yet nothing wrong with that.Havent done a high gravity yet either.

I'm gonna third that. As long as it's vigorously fermenting, no need to take a reading. The only real point to a gravity reading is to make sure it's fermenting, which it obviously is. No worries there.

I generally take a reading when I pitch the yeast, a reading when I rack to secondary, then one more on bottling day. If you don't do a secondary, skip the second reading. No big deal really

S04? It is probably close to be done by now. This yeast is fast.
Gravity reading now, why not?
Sorry to go againts the thoughts of "allow for the yeast to finish and clean up after themselves", but once gravity becomes a flat line, I bottle and let it develop flavors in the bottle.

nilo said:

S04? It is probably close to be done by now. This yeast is fast.
Gravity reading now, why not?
Sorry to go againts the thoughts of "allow for the yeast to finish and clean up after themselves", but once gravity becomes a flat line, I bottle and let it develop flavors in the bottle.

Click to expand...

I bottled my first two right after a flatline 8-12 days.I also had to wait 6 weeks +in the bottle before the green would go away.If that would work for me i would do it but to me its faster to let it condition on the yeast cake in primary a week or two longer to get a good tasting beer, but do what works for you. Ive had my 3rd and 4th beer taste better before the first two that still had to condition.

You can take gravity readings as often as you like but there are two things to consider:

Yeast in suspension will effect your reading (they have mass, plenty of it)
Every time you take a sample (unless you have a conical or something else with a sampling port) you introduce O2 and a potential source of infection.

Take those two items with a grain of salt and you can decide for yourself. It's fun and educational to take lots of samples so you can plot the gravity over time to see the non-linear progress of the yeast. Other than that, why do it?

I guess the problem is that as a newb with way too much info I am compelled to take a reading to see were it is,but it is still active so I know its still going down no matter what.And yes, it is hypnotising starring at the bubbles!

I know what you mean. I'm brewing for years and I think I'm still a newb, and crazy about control and tracking the brewing as it goes. Reason why I take daily gravity readings in "ALL" my batches.
You can build the fermentatoin profiles, like below, and see how different yeast behave differently. Cool stuff. At least for me.

How do you waste the least amount of beer taking a reading each day?

1/2oz each day and a refractometer

nilo said:

I know what you mean. I'm brewing for years and I think I'm still a newb, and crazy about control and tracking the brewing as it goes. Reason why I take daily gravity readings in "ALL" my batches.
You can build the fermentatoin profiles, like below, and see how different yeast behave differently. Cool stuff. At least for me.

Click to expand...

Are these different yeast, nomatter what thats some cool info your keeping there!

ITHZ said:

Are these different yeast, nomatter what thats some cool info your keeping there!

Click to expand...

in sequence:
WY1007
S04
WY3068
S04

Note the fast action of S04. It is a beast:rockin:

nilo said:

1/2oz each day and a refractometer

Click to expand...

Any particular one you recommend?
How about this one? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBL2G0/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

trizzant said:

Any particular one you recommend?
How about this one? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBL2G0/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Click to expand...

Note that some refractometers have Automatic Temperature Compensation (ATC), some don't. The one you listed doesn't say anything that I could see.
I think ATC is a good feature to have and it doesn't cost much more. See at
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000K312Q8/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
Also, some have both brix and relative density (gravity), what may save you time. My has only brix.

As a side note, I am doing the same recipe only with US-05. I hope it reacts the same!Not the same old "I think my fimentation is stuck!!!!!" I hope to learn the flavor difference between the two.

nilo said:

Note that some refractometers have Automatic Temperature Compensation (ATC), some don't. The one you listed doesn't say anything that I could see.
I think ATC is a good feature to have and it doesn't cost much more. See at
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000K312Q8/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
Also, some have both brix and relative density (gravity), what may save you time. My has only brix.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I went ahead and ordered it and an immersion chiller. Now I have everything I'll ever need. For at least a week :rockin:

nilo said:

S04? It is probably close to be done by now. This yeast is fast.
Gravity reading now, why not?
Sorry to go againts the thoughts of "allow for the yeast to finish and clean up after themselves", but once gravity becomes a flat line, I bottle and let it develop flavors in the bottle.

Click to expand...

you would recommend to the op that he take a gravity reading only four days after he pitched AND while the airlock is still actively bubbling away?