Bubbling stopped after ~30hrs

[Revvy]

if my beer is still fermenting don't I run the risk of infecting it if I open the lid?

You know, there is so much all over the place telling brewers, what not to do, do you actually think folks would be saying to use your hydrometer so much? Is it a vast conspiracy to ruin millions of new brewer's batches, so that they flee the hobby and give it a bad rap? Every book, every podcast, every posts talks about gravity of beer...how do you think they get them?

WIth proper care and simple sanitization, you run no risk of infecting your beer by taking a simple gravity reading.

This is what I use, and it works with both buckets and carboys. I replaced the plastic one a year ago with an extra long stainless baster from a kitchen ware store and it is awesome. But the plastic one from any grocery store works fine.

And

Here's what I do....

1) With a spray bottle filled with starsan I spray the lid of my bucket, or the mouth of the carboy, including the bung. Then I spray my turkey baster inside and out with sanitize (or dunking it in a container of sanitizer).

2) Open fermenter.

3) Draw Sample

4) fill sample jar (usualy 2-3 turky baster draws

5)Spray bung or lid with sanitizer again

6) Close lid or bung

6) add hydrometer and take reading

It is less than 30 seconds from the time the lid is removed until it is closed again. More like 15 if you ask me.

Probably less if you have help. And unless a bird flies in your place and lets go with some poop, you should be okay.

But I would wait til next week to even bother taking one, your beer is fine. It is still fermenting away regardless of what your airlock is saying, and if it already reached terminal gravity, letting the yeast clean up after itself is a great thing to do anyway.

 

[brewit2it]

ok ok I get it, I need to take a gravity reading.

what's the best method for doing so? if my beer is still fermenting don't I run the risk of infecting it if I open the lid? should I drain some beer out of the spigot into a separate container and measure it that way?


btw: thanks for all the feedback and interesting technicality banter!

I'm assuming you're fermenting in a bottling bucket since you refer to a spigot (could be a conicle or a pot even but that seems unlikely) so you probably don't want to take the sample from the valve since it is probably down at a level inside your cake/sediment on the bottom. The best thing is to have a device specifically for taking a sample. I have this one:

http://morebeer.com/view_product/6356//The_Sample_Taker

It is pretty cool since it is long enough to reach into my 7 gallon carboy, it is self filling , and you can drop your hydrometer right into it to take a reading and even return the sample to the fermenter if you want, although I don't. If you don't have one and don't want to wait until you get one from your LHBS or online, you can remove a sample from the top by pulling your stopper (spray it with sterilizer first if you are paranoid like most of us) and place a sterilized section of hose in and either start a siphon, or just getting a little at a time by letting it fill then plugging the end so it doesn't drain. There is also a technique folks use by putting a bottle filler on the end of the hose then sucking with their mouth, counting on the spring valve in the bottle filler to block any backwash. This approach makes me nervous since your mouth bacteria is probably the number vector for transmitting an infection to your beer.

 

[Bithead]

You can also take samples with a racking cane or the insert of an autosiphon.

 

[brewit2it]

Turkey baster is great too, but for me most aren't long enough to reach my beer because my carboy is oversized. With a bucket it would work perfectly. Thats the other thing I like about the sample taker I linked above though, it is quite a bit narrower than the sample jar so you can use a smaller sample. But I agree with Revy here, no hurry to take the sample. You will notice most of the questions of the first timers here is "do I have stuck fermentation" and the answer is almost always, "no, just be more patient".

 

[PolishStout]

thanks again for all the fast replies! I'm lovin this forum already!!

I think I will go with pulling the airlock and using the autosiphon. but i will wait probably a week or so before doing it

 

[ezzieyguywuf]

So, my hydrometer came in a nice little cylindrically shaped, uh, thing. Any reason not to use that to take my readings? The guy tried to sell the the nifty thing with the base that revvy has, but I used it for my OG and didn't really seem to have a problem: its not as tall as the tubey thing revvy has though, so do I run the risk of my hydrometer hitting the bottom when the beer is closer to a SG of 1.000, or is it the other way around? (I really should know this, I'm a mechanical engineer...)

 

[brewhooligan]

Based on the original post, it sounds like the beer has only been in primary for a few days. I wouldn't even worry about checking the gravity for at least another 2 weeks anyway. If it was actively bubbling at one point, you can be pretty confident that, if nothing else, your beer was at one time actively fermenting enough to need to vent off some CO2.

Just leave it be for 3 weeks, then take a gravity reading. Even if you've reached your FG already, there's no need to rush it to bottling after just 4 days.

 

[PVH]

So, my hydrometer came in a nice little cylindrically shaped, uh, thing. Any reason not to use that to take my readings? The guy tried to sell the the nifty thing with the base that revvy has, but I used it for my OG and didn't really seem to have a problem: its not as tall as the tubey thing revvy has though, so do I run the risk of my hydrometer hitting the bottom when the beer is closer to a SG of 1.000, or is it the other way around? (I really should know this, I'm a mechanical engineer...)

If the cylinder the hydrometer came in is taller than the hydrometer, then no, I don't see how it could hit bottom. However, those cylinders tend to be really narrow, so that the hydrometer will often be in contact with the side when you're taking a reading. I don't know how much this affects accuracy, but it's got to be less than ideal.

 

[ezzieyguywuf]

I wouldn't think it'd affect accuracy all that much. I mean, both the hydrometer and the plastic must have low coefficients of friction.

 

[PolishStout]

IT'S BEER! and it's quite tasty for being warm and flat. it seems like theres a little CO2 stuck in solution as there was a good bit of bubbles forming on the sides of the glass and a few bubble clusters on the surface of the bucket beer.

thanks for the reassurance that everything was fine! I used a turkey baster and didn't have any problems with the sampling

the hydrometer read at about 1.010, and I will be checking again in a few days.

 

[Revvy]

Yeast 10 million, new brewer's nerves, 0!!!!!

Damn that's a purdy color!.