All grain blow-over!

[ErinGoBuff]

I recently brewed my first all grain batch of beer - a hoppy blonde ale - with a 12# grain bill and three hop additions in the boil. It had an original gravity of 1.067. I expected fermentation to finish in a week (in a temp controlled environment: 65deg) so that I could rack to secondary and dry hop.

I went to check my 6.5gal primary after 8 days do find half the airlock missing and kreusen all over the tshirt I covered the fermenter with. AND... When I brought the fermenter out, the yeast was still doing acrobatics.

Did I just have a stalled fermentation? I expect my FG to be 1.017 (it was 1.024 after 8 days). Was it a mistake to dry hop if fermentation wasn't quite finished?

 

[pondlumber]

Like most things, it'll be fine. It would have been better to dry hop later, but it'll be fine. I would guess it was just a late starter

 

[DrJerryrigger]

I'd have to agree with PL. I'd suggest 1.5 to 2 weeks for primary for future batches. I only secondary for dry hopping and like everything to be quite settled before removing it from the yeast cake.

 

[ErinGoBuff]

Thanks guys! I have to agree with what you've both said - it sounds more than reasonable - I just stopped thinking critically once things didn't go as expected. I totally plan to brew this recipe again, and will take better care to ensure I have enough time to let it finish fermenting before dry hopping. I'll let you know how this one finishes next week!

 

[jhamilt]

One really cool thing about yeast is that they clean up after themselves. During fermentation they'll produce esters like diacetyl, but if you give them time they'll consume them again. Diacetyl gives beer kind of a butterscotch flavor. That's one big reason that I wait until all the yeast activity has stopped before racking to the secondary.