Two ?'s.. 1) Sudden late activity in 2ndary; 2) Temp monitoring

[smaro]

Hello! This is my first post, as I have only been brewing for a few months now, and I must say this has been one of the most rewarding hobbies I've picked up in a long time!

Two (hopefully) quick questions..

1) I have an DIPA in secondary fermentation. It has been sitting for about 5-6 weeks now (not including the 2 weeks in primary--so nearly 8 total) in a brand new plastic carboy. Work has me away from the home 12 hours 4-5 days each week, so I can only check on my little brew baby on opposite ends of the day. After sitting very calmly for 5-6 weeks, yesterday for the first time I noticed something had changed somewhat dramatically. Before, the beer had gone very clear with minimal foam here and there on top. Yesterday, however, suddenly bubbles formed around the grooved sides of the carboy, as well as much more foam on top. I have this setup in the basement where temperature does not fluctuate much at all. My question is simple: what may have caused this situation? ...what's going on in there?

A few things to note:

As I mentioned, the temperature doesn't fluctuate, and everytime I have checked it has been right around the 68F mark (LCD thermo on the outside of the carboy). The fermentor has been sealed w/ airlock the entire time--while my sanitation techniques have been extremely over the top the entire time, as well. It is covered to prevent light getting to it. It is out of any kind of traffic/busy area (it has its own quiet corner). No pets, no children. Far away from any outer walls of the house.

2) Having to deal with being away from the home half of most days, I would love to have a way to track temperature over time. Any ideas on inexpensive ways to track temperature over time? This way I can monitor and track whether or not there are any minute changes in temperature.

Thank you very much for any insight/comments/help. I have attempted to look up answers, but have not found anything as similar to my situation given the 5-6 weeks of everything otherwise being quiet and simple. Granted, with 12 hours of work each day I haven't had the time to check every dark corner of the internet, either. Thanks again!

 

[Rambleon]

I've had a similar situation with a beer sitting calmly for a while then bubbles started showing up on the sides. Unfortunately it ended up being an infection. If u bottle your beer you might be screwed but if you keg you might be able to stop it in time. Either way, that's a looong time for a beer to be sitting in a fermenter, especially since a DIPA should be consumed fresh.
As far as temp monitoring: no idea. Sorry.


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[smaro]

Thanks for the reply. I was planning on kegging half and bottling the other half. Hopefully it's not an infection, but indeed that was something I was considering, too. You mentioned kegging can save it? How do you mean exactly?

I squeezed the keg a very small bit just to sneak a smell from the airlock.. doesn't smell 'bad' ... although I'm not entirely sure what to be looking for.

If it is an infection, as I said, the change happened literally overnight... I figured there would have been indication leading up to this.. is it not uncommon for infections to make their presence known in a mere 24 hour period?

 

[Rambleon]

I say kegging can save it because the cold temps of your fridge should stop the progress of whatever is being active in your beer. I'm not sure what it is that creeps up so fast but it never creates a pelicle or molds, just appears as a restarted fermentation. If you bottle it I think you'll get what is referred to as a "gusher bug." My first gusher bottle launched beer all over the ceiling.


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[Falcon3]

8 weeks is way too long to keep a DIPA in carboys anyway... Drink it fresh. Maybe 4 weeks max before packaging ( I do 10 days). I think there's a decent chance the beer is fine. Package in keg and drink soon.


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[smaro]

Awesome advice. I'm at work now (night shift).. about to head home and going to keg right away. A little backstory..

This one is my first brew... wanted it to be somewhere between an English and American IPA. Ended up using way to many hops (recipe called for 1.25-1.5 oz each of 3 separate hop varieties, and as a noob would do, I decided to just toss in all of the 2oz of each in the bag -- went from 4 to 6oz total hops). After learning more about styles and (proper) techniques while it was sitting all the time in primary/secondary, I calculated it out and looks to be pushing ~150-170 IBU. Don't get me wrong, I'm a hopaholic--I love IPAs and such, but I felt a bit dumb for it ending up the way it did.

So after some further research, decided I could remove some of the hoppiness by letting it sit longer (indeed, if I wanted to drink 150-170 IBU beer, I would have pulled this much sooner). I pegged tonight as the night to keg/bottle about a week or so ago, and it just so happened that one night before this strange situation occurred.

I really wanted to age some of it in bottles, but I certainly want to avoid all the horror stories I have heard of the good 'ol gusher.

Please, if anyone has any further advice I am still looking for any and all opinions on the matter. In the meantime, I'll see what happens next and will update accordingly.

Thanks again!!!!

 

[doug293cz]

2) Having to deal with being away from the home half of most days, I would love to have a way to track temperature over time. Any ideas on inexpensive ways to track temperature over time? This way I can monitor and track whether or not there are any minute changes in temperature.

For tracking, and even remote monitoring, of fermentation temperature you should look into the BrewPi http://www.brewpi.com/. There is a very active thread on HBT on how to roll your own low cost BrewPi (thanks FuzzeWuzze) https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/howto-make-brewpi-fermentation-controller-cheap-466106/.

Brew on

 

[danath34]

sounds like an infection to me... I second (third? fourth?) the idea to keg and chill asap. that is unless you're fond of both experimentation and sour beers... (and have decent luck)

 

[smaro]

As soon as I got home I threw it in a keg. This new ongoing (infectious?)
process was indeed continuing, but it was doing so at a crawl. 3-piece
airlock would throw a bubble once every 5- 15 minutes. Hopefully it turns out
okay. I've read about some possible wild-yeast infections.. and how some
can be advantageous given the ride conditions (and desireables). As such,
like anyone else I was hoping for a pure brew, but we'll see nonetheless.
There seemed to be no off smell at all, although I'll admit I decided to wait
until it is at least half-way carbonated before giving it a taste--until then a verdict will be on hold.

I still can't understand how it got infected. It was fine for so long. I was
wondering if maybe the bong/airlock setup was loose--and upon transferring
to keg it seemed everything was sealed into place just fine.

So my next question is this.. Can something get in through the 3-piece?
As in, what may affect the likeliness of this occurring?

1) A partial (less than adequate fill) of sanitized solution in the 3-piece (mine
was filled appropriately).
2) Maybe the sanitized solution loses its effectiveness after a while (mine sat
for 5 weeks without changing it)?
3) I covered my carboy with a paper/cardboard setup, and occasionally it
would 'droop' to the point that it was making contact with parts of the
carboy--could contact with the airlock invite something in?
4) Any other suggestions?

Thanks again so much everyone--I still think it's so rockin' that an infected beer can still be a success of sorts.

 

[smaro]

I have since poured myself a glass and I was very pleasantly surprised! ..the beer tastes GREAT!!!

Also, I was wondering if anyone had an opinion on the possibility that this could have been further fermentation of the original yeast. Might this occur based on higher temperature (even after having finishing fermentation 5 weeks long ago) or higher humidity?.....

I have been thinking a lot about the possibilities of what happened, especially now that I have tried (and enjoyed!) the beer. As many of you know, here in Denver the weather is typically very dry. Well these past several days we had some much higher than normal humidities (lots of moisture in the air just sits here in the basement), and I am curious as to whether or not an infection could have propagated its way in given the increase in humidity.

All I can point to is the humidity change -- whether than affected infection or further fermentation of the original yeast.... what do you think?

Still, must say I'm over the moon given that my first beer, with possible infection, turned out so wonderfully! I sure hope nobody ever just pours their infected beer down the sink before giving it a chance! ..based on the thought that, of course, whether or not this was indeed an infection at all.......

Thoughts?