Brewer's Best Pumpkin Porter Question

[deanktenor]

Hi all,

I'm still pretty new to home brew, done about 5 or 6 of these kits and a few from-scratches. I'm working on the BB Pumpkin Porter. Here's my dilemma. It's been in primary for 8 days. I'm still getting a bubble about every 10 seconds, but my abv is only up to 2.2 percent. Here's my dilemma, these kits say to go to secondary after 5-7 days. I will be out of town from day 9 through day 11. Should I go to secondary now or let it sit until I return? My concern is just the yeast dying off.

Thanks,

Dean

 

[m00ps]

dont secondary it at all. Trust me. They havent updated those damn kit instructions in like decades. You dont need a secondary for +90% of the beers youll make

 

[menerdari]

I only secondary beer if I want to age it for a while or if I have stuff I want to add to it. aside from that I usually rack right from primary to my bottling bucked the day I bottle.

 

[deanktenor]

That does make me feel better. I usually secondary them and wonder why I bothered. So would you recommend just leaving it in primary till the bubbles stop then bottle carbing?

 

[brewpool]

That does make me feel better. I usually secondary them and wonder why I bothered. So would you recommend just leaving it in primary till the bubbles stop then bottle carbing?

Do you have a hydrometer to measure final gravity? If not, I'd personally give it 3 weeks before you bottle.

 

[m00ps]

yeah you cant go by airlock activity alone for judging when to bottle. This will lead to overcarbed beer or worse - bottle bombs. Always go by stable hydrometer readings over the course of 2-3 days before bottling. Or at the very least wait a week past ALL airlock activity has ceased if you arent doing any readings at all. Even after it mostly stops off-gasing, the yeast still need to clean up and condition the beer

 

[deanktenor]

Thanks for all the help folks. It's appreciated. Oddly, I am still getting bubbles but, unless I took numbers wrong, I am still at 2.2% after another week, 47% attenuation. I'm thinking give it another week in the carboy (3 weeks total)? To be honest, I don't want to waste the bottles on 1.85% beer.

 

[CJ-3]

It sounds like you may have a stuck fermentation. Aside from your ABV can you tell us the OG and FG? Additionally, are you using a hydrometer or a refractometer?

 

[deanktenor]

Hydrometer. Og 1.032. Currently. 1.016.

 

[nettekdl]

Your og was 1.032? That is awfully low for a porter, can you post the recipie you used?

 

[CJ-3]

If it was the Brewer's Best Pumpkin Spice Porter you have reached final gravity. That one ends up in the 1.014-1.018 range. What concerns me is your OG is really low. It should have been in the 1.057-1.061 range.

Assuming you added all of the LME and maltodextrin from the kit your OG reading might have been off?

Assuming your readings are 100% accurate and there is a different reason your OG is so low, you could add DME or sugar to your fermentation bucket and give it a stir to restart fermentation and raise the ABV.

 

[deanktenor]

Yes. It is the Brewers best. I definitely added all the ingredients in the box and after cooling the boil I filled it to 5 gallons and pitched. It seems to me that the only reasonable conclusion is that I took an incorrect reading. Sadly, I just stirred my carboy and need to wait for all the sediment to drop down to the bottom. Thanks a lot for your help. I appreciate it.

 

[deanktenor]

By the way, good call on checking the directions. Haha!

 

[nettekdl]

Sounds like you added top up water so you probably got a bad reading due to stratification of the heavier wort and the recently added top up water. Next time make sure you mix it together well before pulling a reading

 

[deanktenor]

I was just looking over my brew day notes. That is exactly what happened! My OG was 1.063, then I realized I wasn't at the 5 gallon mark. I filled up and then got a reading of 1.032. So I should have stirred better first? Meaning my OG of 1.032 was inaccurate? Thanks again!