8 days later and bubbling - still fermenting?

Brewed 8 days ago. was out of town for most of last week. just got back in town and thought I'd probably be ready for an SG check. was sanitizing beer thief when I heard a BLURP from the closet.

What? It's still fermenting??

Sure enough, about every 5 minutes I still get bubbles in the airlock. So is this batch still doin' it's thing? Should I even bother to open it up for an SG check yet?

FYI: fermenter = plastic bucket

Beer could be outgassing. If there's a temperature change (specifically, it warms up) then CO2 will outgas.

Trust your SG readings.

As revy says - air lock activity is not an indicator of fermentation or lack thereof. Go by your gravity measurements.

I would just leave it - wait another week or two before taking a hydrometer reading.

Well its probably done, but you're not going to bottle or keg yet right? I wouldnt , so just leave it be, leave it alone for another 1 to 2 weeks. Check gravity then, cold crash for 24-48 hours. You'll be glad you did.

At 8 days it's most likely done fermenting, but not ready for you to do anything with yet.

Time to brew another batch while you're waiting!

thanks everyone.

ohiobrewtus said:

At 8 days it's most likely done fermenting, but not ready for you to do anything with yet.

Time to brew another batch while you're waiting!

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wish I could, but this is the only fermenter I have.

bonzombiekitty said:

As revy says - air lock activity is not an indicator of fermentation or lack thereof. Go by your gravity measurements.

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thanks. I knew that lack of airlock bubbles doesn't necessarily mean fermentation has stopped, but I didn't know that continued activity doesn't necessarily mean that fermentation is still going on.

I guess I figured the airlock is like a pregnancy test: it may say you don't have a bun in the oven when you really do, but it'll never give a false positive. Apparently that's wrong.

hmmm I just took a reading and it was 1.013. OG was 1.04. It seems my current reading is on the high end of normal. Thoughts?

btw it smells good and tastes - well, like flat beer! color is also very good. not too dark. no off smells or tastes that I can detect

apologeticus said:

hmmm I just took a reading and it was 1.013. OG was 1.04. It seems my current reading is on the high end of normal. Thoughts?

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It is most likely done but without a recipe and knowing your process we don't know much. There are a lot of variables and I am guessing this is extract which throws in more. for example:

did you mash some grains, steep them? Did you make a starter? What was your fermentation temp? What was your yeast? How big was the batch? etc....

I'd leave it in there for at least 3 weeks minimum (since it doesn't sound like you're going to secondary) to let the yeast do the rest of their work (cleaning up any byproducts they made during fermentation).

When you do plan on moving it to another vessel, just take readings over the course of a few days prior and make sure there aren't any variations.

The extra time in there will also help you get a nice clear beer.

humann_brewing said:

It is most likely done but without a recipe and knowing your process we don't know much. There are a lot of variables and I am guessing this is extract which throws in more. for example:

did you mash some grains, steep them? Did you make a starter? What was your fermentation temp? What was your yeast? How big was the batch? etc....

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NB Nut Brown Ale (extract)
mashed and steeped specialty grains for 15 min. used nottingham dry yeast. no starter, but I did rehydrate. fermentation ambient temp was 68º (no thermometer for the primary so can't tell you that number). 5 gal batch. 2 gal boil.

apologeticus said:

NB Nut Brown Ale (extract)
mashed and steeped specialty grains for 15 min. used nottingham dry yeast. no starter, but I did rehydrate. fermentation ambient temp was 68º (no thermometer for the primary so can't tell you that number). 5 gal batch. 2 gal boil.

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I would expect nottingham to go a bit further than that but you never know. You don't know exactly how much fermentablility you get out of the extract plus I doubt you created any fermentable sugar in the 15 minutes of steeping and not sure if you steeped any convertable grains anyways.

The point is, there is nothing you can do now, any attempts to correct would probably cause more harm than good. Just bottle/keg it up and enjoy