Conflicting Fermentation Indicators

I repeated a belgian wit recipe this past weekend verbatum. The only exception is that instead of pitching a new vial of White Labs (WL400) in a 5 day starter...I pitched one half (1/2) the yeast cake (on starter) of the original Belgian Wit I did a two weeks earlier.

Every thing looked (and looks) great. Pitched it on Saturday evening around 6:00PM and by Sunday night, good foaming and bubbling in the blow off. By Monday AM, the krausen had filled the top of the carboy and was "pulsating" its way through the blowoff tube. Zillions of microsopic bubbles.

Monday night I decided to take a reading.. My OG was 1.043. My reading after 48 hours of what I thought was some great fermentation was....1.036.

What?

I take two separate readings on brew day...one before the yeast is pitched and one right after to see of the large starter throws off the OG at all. So I'm sure the 1.043 was a good reading.

Yesterday I took another reading and the G was at 1.032.

This seems to be a real conflict of indicators. THe thing looks like it's fermenting like crazy but the gravity is dropping at a snails pace.

Anyone else ever see something like this?

Well, the good thing is that it's fermenting. How's your temp??

I've had slow ones before also, but I figure each batch is not a (totally) controlled experiment.

Can't help you but I am wondering as to why you would take a gravity reading during an obviously active fermentation. Just curious?

cha ngo said:

Can't help you but I am wondering as to why you would take a gravity reading during an obviously active fermentation. Just curious?

Click to expand...

Habit. My last wit finished fermenting at 4 days.

I like to get an idea of the velocity of the gravity drop.

Plus, it's my time to play in my beer.

My temp is right at 66 dgrees. Pretty steady temp in my basement.

My once a month mulligan bump.