Rapid airlock activity at 3 weeks

I have a batch of Apfelwein which is at the 3 week and 1 day mark in primary. The airlock activity seemed to die down about a week ago, so I opened it up to take a gravity reading, which was sitting right around 1.002. Now it is bubbling quite rapidly -- at least once every 10 seconds. I'm afraid that I might have infected it when I opened. Or could the activity of opening just put more yeast in suspension? I am concerned because the gravity was already quite dry a week ago, so I don't see what the yeasties could be making all this gas from. Should I be concerned, or just let her be and bottle in a week as I have planned?

It would be pretty hard for it to get infected now, due to the alchohol within it. Could just be CO2 comming out of suspension as well. I would wait another week, and see what happens. Also, try tasting it, if it tastes sour (bad sour) then its infected.

I doubt it's infected-- there's enough alcohol and yeast in the apfelwein to wipe out any competitors. 1.002 isn't quite done yet-- there's still some sugars left for the yeast. My apfelweins went below 1.000, so you should wait until it's done before bottling. When the yeast have dropped out of suspension and the apfelwein is clear, then it's done-- don't bottle on a schedule, bottle when it's done.

-Steve

my apfelwien took at least 4 weeks to finish. besides, they're right, you practically have to throw bacteria into that stuff to infect it once it's fermented!

Ok, that makes me more at ease. Although, I do need to bottle in the next week and a half since I'm heading back to school in Minnesota and would rather not drive halfway across the country with carboys full of alcohol.

It won't hurt you to bottle it, if you have to do it now.

If you were planning to carb it, then go ahead, and use slightly less sugar (80-90%). If you weren't planning on carbing it, it might carb up just slightly if it's not done yet. But there isn't enough left to cause bottle bombs.

Also, if you are planning to travel with it, the best thing would be to purge out the oxygen and replace it with CO2. That way you have no worries of oxidation. Nothing would beat going back up to school with a hatch full of apfelwein. :rockin:

Deuce said:

Nothing would beat going back up to school with a hatch full of apfelwein. :rockin:

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Plan is to roll up with 5 gallons of Centennial Blonde and 5 gallons of Apfelwein both bottled and ready to go. Hopefully I'll give my friends there a easy introduction to homebrewing (that they hopefully wont forget...), and then have an eager audience for more tasty experiments for the rest of the year.



Anyway to co2 purge without buying a co2 tank? I don't have one at the moment.