Ksuit
Member
Hey I've never posted and just got my all-grain setup going so I really haven't had a lot to say. Unfortunately I'm freaking out with what's probably not a huge problem, but it's been 16 days and my 5+ gallons of 1.058 Stout is still fermenting. The real problem is not the gravity; it went from 1.058 to 1.022ish (which is close to what Beersmith estimated) the last time I checked 2 days ago, but there is still a crazy bubbly-brown-yeasty mass on the top of the liquid.
It smells fine, looks fine (except for the still fermenting part), and I really don't think there's anything wrong with it except it's taking up my plastic primary and I'm itching to brew. My real concern is really if I should just let it sit in my plastic bucket fermenter that long, because I hear after about 2 weeks, or when the beer stops putting out co2/pressure plastic-ey tastes can leach into the beer.
My other big concern is that I didn't pitch enough yeast. I didn't get a chance to grab an erlenmeyer flask and create a starter, I just straight pitched Wyeast London III from its slap-pack, which I know isn't ideal but it was 20$ I didn't have right then. The adjoining concern is that I want to wash and save the yeast to further cut costs, and kinda need the yeast to settle to the bottom for that (or to even rack to secondary and wash and store the yeast then). The only other concern is that I've kept it too cool, its in a dark closet but it can't be colder than 70 at any given time and that's why it's taking so long.
I'd really appreciate it if someone just told me to calm down and not worry about it, but I'd also like to know how serious the potential problems can be too or what the cause might be.
It smells fine, looks fine (except for the still fermenting part), and I really don't think there's anything wrong with it except it's taking up my plastic primary and I'm itching to brew. My real concern is really if I should just let it sit in my plastic bucket fermenter that long, because I hear after about 2 weeks, or when the beer stops putting out co2/pressure plastic-ey tastes can leach into the beer.
My other big concern is that I didn't pitch enough yeast. I didn't get a chance to grab an erlenmeyer flask and create a starter, I just straight pitched Wyeast London III from its slap-pack, which I know isn't ideal but it was 20$ I didn't have right then. The adjoining concern is that I want to wash and save the yeast to further cut costs, and kinda need the yeast to settle to the bottom for that (or to even rack to secondary and wash and store the yeast then). The only other concern is that I've kept it too cool, its in a dark closet but it can't be colder than 70 at any given time and that's why it's taking so long.
I'd really appreciate it if someone just told me to calm down and not worry about it, but I'd also like to know how serious the potential problems can be too or what the cause might be.