Wont Stop

[hogan029]

Hi all,

So I have placed this Irish Stout in my secondary fermenter with an air lock 15 days ago. It seems to still be producing CO2 and I see no sign of it slowing down. Should I just continue to let it go until it stops or what would be next course of action be? I have never seen it go this far before..

Ryan

 

[prpromin]

While airlock activity can be a sign of fermentation, it does not necessarily indicate (or indicate lack of) fermentation. Take a gravity reading today and again in a few days. If the gravity is stable, you're probably done. If it's me, I'm not cracking the bucket for at least three weeks, but if it's a typical gravity Irish stout, I bet you're all done, or very close.

Cheers.

 

[hogan029]

Sounds good. My other issue is that I have no idea what the specific gravity should be. There wasn't one with the recipe. Any ballpark figures?

 

[govner1]

Hi all,



So I have placed this Irish Stout in my secondary fermenter with an air lock 15 days ago. It seems to still be producing CO2 and I see no sign of it slowing down. Should I just continue to let it go until it stops or what would be next course of action be? I have never seen it go this far before..



Ryan

How long did you leave it in primary?
It's not unusual for the wort/beer to de-gas a bit in secondary.
How are you controlling the ferm temp? If you raised the temp you could so get more activity.
But, as outed above your SG is key. It needs to be consistent for three days to confirm fermentation is complete. I'd still leave it one for a few days afterwards so the yeast can do its cleanup.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[william_shakes_beer]

As stated above, bubbles do not necessarailly indicate active fermentation. If your barometric pressure is dropping, you can have co2 move out of suspension and create bubbles.

 

[hogan029]

Okay that makes sense. I had it in the primary fermenter for 5 days when the head died down to nothing. I then transferred it to the secondary carboy and after two days the bubbles started. Is it okay to take a specific gravity reading and then put the airlock back on? I was under the impression that if you took the airlock off, the batch had to be bottled. I just have it in a room that has a constant temperature of 19degree celc.

 

[Rootski]

I recently had a stout in primary, a plastic carboy, and it fermented out quite quickly. Airlock activity dropped to nearly nothing and I was going to bottle after another week or so. Things got cold outside so we had a few fires in the fireplace which is in the next room over from where my carboys are. I noticed the airlock activity picked up to about 1 bubble every 10 seconds which had me worried. I had taken a gravity sample after about 10 days, and then again after the airlock had been going for a full week roughly on day 21. The gravity reading was identical on both readings at 1.011 so I bottled a few days later - still at 1.011 and still bubbling the airlock at 1 per 10 seconds. Carbed low at 2.1 vol.

I think the temperature change from cool to warm and back to cool, although it was probably only 1 or 2 degrees, caused some weird pressure changes within the plastic carboy and gave the appearance of fermentation. There were even bubbles popping on the surface of the beer. It has only been bottled for 1 week now, so we'll see how it turns out with time. I was using 1968 yeast and roused the yeast after 7 days in primary.

 

[feinbera]

Get a wine thief, and use it to pull your hydrometer sample. Taking the airlock off isn't great, but as long as you're in and out quickly, sanitize the thief, and don't throw the sample back in, the odds of infecting your beer are minimal.

 

[MonsterBrew]

Sounds good. My other issue is that I have no idea what the specific gravity should be. There wasn't one with the recipe. Any ballpark figures?

I would imagine it should be from 1.042-1.048 but really depends on the kit.

-Jeff

 

[ChuckO]

It's too late to measure the OG, you can determine that from the recipe. The final SG on my stouts usually come out between 1.010 and 1.016. Plug the recipe into something like BrewSmith and you will get an idea.