EinGutesBier
Well-Known Member
Last Wednesday I made a cranberry wheat beer (half batch...about 2.5 gallons). Not sure if it's relevant but I used 3 lbs of DME, a lot of hops, and one envelope of Wyeast Propagator. While I realize now I should've used an activator, I'll admit this was my second batch and didn't realize it until it was time to pitch the yeast...so I went ahead anyway (maybe this turned my wort into a giant fermenting bucket of starter?).
The fermentation hasn't been terribly active and has altogether stopped for a while now. When I looked into the bucket, I saw what I presume to be an ugly, ugly krausen. It was kind of slimy, green from the hop residue but it was receding. I figured that this wasn't something I wanted to let keep on my beer and since it had been a week and 2 days, I figured it wasn't a big deal. So I used a sanitized spatula to remove this. No big deal. I put the lid and airlock back on, now being able to actually see the fermenting wort/beer again.
Long story short, I decide to bottle this morning (by this time it had been a week and about 3 days since I started) since the fermentation seemed to have stopped. When I removed the cover to put the sugar water in for priming, I noticed that there was a bit of light traces of foam and maybe one bubble came up. After seeing that, I decided to stop with the bottling process until I could figure out if my yeast had come back with a second wind.
Does anyone have an idea as to what's going on and whether I should let it keep fermenting or just bottle it? Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer me some sage advice.
The fermentation hasn't been terribly active and has altogether stopped for a while now. When I looked into the bucket, I saw what I presume to be an ugly, ugly krausen. It was kind of slimy, green from the hop residue but it was receding. I figured that this wasn't something I wanted to let keep on my beer and since it had been a week and 2 days, I figured it wasn't a big deal. So I used a sanitized spatula to remove this. No big deal. I put the lid and airlock back on, now being able to actually see the fermenting wort/beer again.
Long story short, I decide to bottle this morning (by this time it had been a week and about 3 days since I started) since the fermentation seemed to have stopped. When I removed the cover to put the sugar water in for priming, I noticed that there was a bit of light traces of foam and maybe one bubble came up. After seeing that, I decided to stop with the bottling process until I could figure out if my yeast had come back with a second wind.
Does anyone have an idea as to what's going on and whether I should let it keep fermenting or just bottle it? Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer me some sage advice.