American Amber Ale

[tompither]

So, I'm now on my third homebrew and have used an American Amber Ale kit. It's the first kit I've used that requires the hops adding. The hops have now been in 5 days and SG is stable, so I opened the fermentation bin and a lot of the hops is sitting in a scummy layer on top of the beer. It looks horrible, but I just wanted to check this was normal. I tasted the sample I pulled for measuring the gravity and it tastes fine. Actually it tastes very good considering it still hasn't had time to condition in the bottle.

So can I have some comfort from you more experienced brewers that the scummy layer on top of the beer is normal. Assuming I get some love from you guys I'll bottle it tomorrow

 

[stevehardt]

Completely normal.

 

[DocScott]

Normal but don't bottle yet!

5 days is too soon in almost every case! I'd give it another 5 days to let the yeast metabolize some of the less desirable flavors that they create during primary and to make sure that all of the fermentables are consumed. Waiting a bit longer will also help that "scummy" layer drop to the bottom of your bucket and clear you beer.

At a minimum, check the gravity again in a couple days to ensure you are really at terminal gravity. Bottling too early makes for poor flavor, and risks exploding bottles.

Edit: did you dry hop this? Is tht what you meant by adding hops to this batch? If so, as long as the gravity is stable, yes 5 days is plenty to extract the aroma from the dry hop. Bottle away!

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