I'm currently in the middle of my third brew, and this is my first from a recipe using raw ingredients versus a BB Kit. This is also my first doing a full versus partial boil. I brewed one titled "Belgian White Men Can't Jump", which I thought was an awesome title. I brewed on 2/22/15, and had an OG of 1.041. After watching it for days, I didn't have any visible activity in the primary airlock, so I decided to shine a flashlight in through the side of my brew bucket primary to see if I could tell if anything was happening. A definite krausen had risen and fallen, and I could see that there was a yeast cake in the bottom. On 3/1/15, I decided to open it up, agitate by spinning the bucket by the handle, reset the airlock, and leave it for another few days to see if I couldn't "wake it up." Airlock activity began almost immediately, and was bubbling every 3-4 seconds. It did this for 2 days, then stopped. Last night, after not seeing any activity for 36 hours, I decided to rack to a secondary. My gravity reading was 1.011, which I calculated to be an ABV% of 3.8. Something had happened. I also tasted it and it was the best of the three recipes I had made. After racking to secondary and adding the peel of 2 oranges that I had steeped in a quarter cup vodka to kill any wild beasties, I noticed the airlock bubbling again. I thought it was just off gassing, so I left it alone and covered it up with a black t-shirt to keep light out. This morning, though, a definite second krausen layer had risen overnight inside the secondary and the airlock was bubbling like crazy. The beer has been at or around 70 degrees since I brewed. Do I need to be worried about anything with this secondary krausen layer, or is this just something that happens sometimes? Will this change my ABV%? I'm attaching pictures of many of the steps, and can attach a picture of my "new" krausen when I get home tonight.
