Decisions, decisions...help?

[SailorJerry]

Alright, so we may have gone a bit above our heads for our fourth brew, but we made a hopslam clone with a few changes. Anyways, our OG read 1.098-1.1, something in that range. Here we are, two and a half weeks later and she's still bubbling away. Well, part of that might be caused by the 3 pounds of honey we used at flame out instead of the 1# in the recipe.
Anyways, we took a hydrometer taking and is at 1.019, and w pitched two white labs liquid yeast after we had it cooled down.
Questions:
Can we expect this to drop yet?
Can we go ahead with our dry hop (which we did, actually)
For bottling, can we just cold crash for a few days to clear the beer (and 11oz of hop matter), or should we secondary and let it condition a bit?

Thoughts?

 

[CU_tony]

What is the full recipe, without that most answers are just a guess.
What size batch?
What type of yeast?
What is the fermentation temp?

Answers
1) maybe, it may drop a few more points, depends on all the info you haven't told us
2) I suppose?? Did you already do it, why are you asking? You can dry hop at any time, IMO the best is near the end of primary while there is still airlock activity is the best time to dry hop
3) if you want to bulk age it, do it before bottling. You can also let the bottles sit as long as you wish (within reason)

 

[kh54s10]

How long has the beer been fermenting. I would go at least 10 days to 2 weeks or so before taking a gravity reading. If it hasn't been that long wait a little longer. If it has been that long, take another gravity reading on Wednesday. If it is the same you can decide on a cold crash. If it is not clear the cold crash should help.

I don't secondary. I feel the risk of infection or oxidation outweigh any small amount of clearing you will get. I only secondary if I am aging for a couple months or more in bulk.

 

[dmtaylor]

Honey takes extra time to ferment. I think it's almost done, but you'll want to give it some extra time just to be safe. Probably another 10-14 days or so is my guess. Wait until you think it's done, check gravity.... then wait another 4-5 days, check gravity again. Eventually it will quit. It's getting close. Yeah, I would have dry hopped at this point too. If bottling, I would wait until most of the hop crap is settled out, or rack to try to accelerate it.

 

[SailorJerry]

How long has the beer been fermenting. I would go at least 10 days to 2 weeks or so before taking a gravity reading. If it hasn't been that long wait a little longer. If it has been that long, take another gravity reading on Wednesday. If it is the same you can decide on a cold crash. If it is not clear the cold crash should help.

I don't secondary. I feel the risk of infection or oxidation outweigh any small amount of clearing you will get. I only secondary if I am aging for a couple months or more in bulk.

We are 16 days in, I think. I understand your point on the secondary.

 

[SailorJerry]

Honey takes extra time to ferment. I think it's almost done, but you'll want to give it some extra time just to be safe. Probably another 10-14 days or so is my guess. Wait until you think it's done, check gravity.... then wait another 4-5 days, check gravity again. Eventually it will quit. It's getting close. Yeah, I would have dry hopped at this point too. If bottling, I would wait until most of the hop crap is settled out, or rack to try to accelerate it.

Just trying to figure the best way to limit crap going into the bottles. Never used this many hops before, but still want to produce a clean beer.

 

[SailorJerry]

What is the full recipe, without that most answers are just a guess.
What size batch?
What type of yeast?
What is the fermentation temp?

Answers
1) maybe, it may drop a few more points, depends on all the info you haven't told us
2) I suppose?? Did you already do it, why are you asking? You can dry hop at any time, IMO the best is near the end of primary while there is still airlock activity is the best time to dry hop
3) if you want to bulk age it, do it before bottling. You can also let the bottles sit as long as you wish (within reason)

5 gallon batch, extract with steeping grains
White labs something, don't have it off hand.
Fermentation temp is probably 66 room temp, so fermenting a few degrees warmer than that.

Asking about the dry hop more more input on whether it was the right idea or not. Had already read that doing it towards the end of fermentation is fine, just double checking

Don't really want to age it, just make sure we don't have a bunch of **** in the bottles.

 

[RTL]

3lbs of honey in a 5 gallon batch is pretty significant. The best way to approach this would be to take continued hydrometer readings and when they stop changing is when you package. If you are going to secondary now would be good since you still have airlock activity and a decent gravity you likely have a few more points to go, which means any oxygen uptake from transfer will be handled by the yeast. I don't know how to predict FG with extract, I didn't do it long enough to learn, but you can have pretty high FG with extracts depending on their age. So you may be close to done but with airlock activity I would not package. Again optimally you just keep taking gravity samples until they stabilize.

Since you already dry hopped and the beer is relatively warm if it takes another week or two to finish you may be better served having it off the hops. Personally I have dumped all manner of boil hops and dry hops into my fermenters and left them for a month or longer with nary an off flavor, but there are those who claim excessive dry hop time leads to grassy or vegetal flavors. Maybe their palates are more sensitive to them than mine, and my mentality is better safe than sorry. That is until Brulosophy goes and disproves the myth. Another bonus to racking now is if your secondary is glass or stainless you can leave it indefinitely until the FG stabilizes.

 

[SailorJerry]

If we secondary, it'd be into another fermentation bucket, which would allow us to use the air lock. We just dry hopped it yesterday, so we'll leave those for a few days and then probably cold crash and bottle.

I'm interested to know about "fining", I read about it often here, and wonder if this would be a good beer to try it with. I have little ones running around at home that love jello jigglers, so I have knox in my pantry, and I'd love to try it. Can anyone tell me how you go about this process?

And, I'm not sure how we calculate where potential FG will end, but I figured with the high OG that we had, getting down to where we are, at 1.019, is pretty significant, so I'm really not imagining it's going to go down much from there. I believe a higher FG will result in a little sweeter beer, is that right?

 

[IslandLizard]

You cannot use a bucket for secondaries. Also, racking to a secondary may and likely will cause oxidation, killing your hop flavor and aroma quickly.

Your dry hops will settle toward the bottom after a few days. Cold crashing will help precipitate the yeast too, as will adding one tsp of gelatin dissolved in 1/3 cup of 160F water, right before cold crashing.

When racking to your bottling bucket, tie a well-sanitized, very fine mesh nylon hop sack around the bottom of your racking cane or auto siphon to prevent transferring hop pulp. Start racking from the middle of the bucket, lowering the cane as the beer level drops. Be careful it doesn't start to suck air, keep it in the beer. Toward the end, you can slowly and carefully tilt the bucket toward the cane to get some more beer out. The siphon may slow down as the bag gets coated with hop pulp, so exercise some patience.

Keep in mind, each time you lift the lid off your bucket, the headspace will fill with air (and O2), losing the oxidation protection fermentation CO2 offers you.

I try to keep the lid on the bucket until I've finished racking (to keg). I then dry hop in the keg and transfer to another keg (for serving), when it's ready. All mostly closed transfers.

 

[SailorJerry]

Why can't a bucket be used for a secondary? Are you saying for us to ever secondary a beer, we should be looking at purchasing car boys? Honestly, we are greeeeeeeen to this, looking to learn as much as we can!

How do you keep the lid on your bucket when transferring? I don't have a way to get my auto siphon into my bucket without removing it's lid.

Thank you for the info on the gelatin, we'll probably try that. Dissolve it first, pour into the fermentor, and then move to the fridge to cold crash, right?

 

[RTL]

The link below might help with your gelatin questions. Slightly different from Island Lizards method, in that they recommend the beer already be cold before adding gelatin. It is the method I use and is highly effective.

http://brulosophy.com/2015/01/05/the-gelatin-effect-exbeeriment-results/


Secondary for most people has gone the way of the dinosaurs except for the biggest of beers. If you are doing a secondary it should be because you intend to bulk age in that secondary for an extended period, either to assure FG is reached or to allow the flavors to mellow and blend. You do not want to bulk age in plastic because it is oxygen permeable and will result in oxidized beer. If you are still in primary and have taken the FG readings to a point of stability then just bottle it. If you haven't taken the FG readings and you still have airlock activity your are risking bottle bombs. The airlock is not the authority on fermentation progress but it is one of the indicators. Personally I would not bottle if I still had airlock activity. Also I would not secondary if I did not have glass or stainless to do it in. 1.100 is a huge beer, be patient and you will be rewarded. If you try to rush it you could lose half of it to bottle bombs, or it could be a shadow of what it might have been due to oxidation damage.

 

[IslandLizard]

Why can't a bucket be used for a secondary? Are you saying for us to ever secondary a beer, we should be looking at purchasing car boys? Honestly, we are greeeeeeeen to this, looking to learn as much as we can!

How do you keep the lid on your bucket when transferring? I don't have a way to get my auto siphon into my bucket without removing it's lid.

Thank you for the info on the gelatin, we'll probably try that. Dissolve it first, pour into the fermentor, and then move to the fridge to cold crash, right?

Generally, secondaries aren't needed. Most things can be done right in the primary fermentor, it being a bucket, conical, Speidel, whatever. Not lifting the lid off a bucket keeps the CO2 rich gas inside the headspace, preventing oxidation, etc.

So there's no need to go out and buy carboys. Even if your recipe instructions tell you so, they're notoriously outdated, and keep the sales of carboys up.

Buckets have too large of a headspace and they can't be sealed very well either. Secondaries require a small headspace (almost none), and a good seal (bung). Low permeability is a good asset too when aging for months or years. Carboys still have a valid purpose, as secondaries when absolutely needed. I do most of my "secondaries" (if I need them) in corny kegs.

I use a (stainless) racking cane, it goes through the grommet hole, after removing the rubber grommet. Some of my bucket lids have a larger, 1" access hole in the middle I plug up normally with a stopper.

Yeah, pour in the gelatin, stir a bit, carefully, don't whip it! Cold crash.

 

[dmtaylor]

I just bottled my DIPA yesterday. Last week it was still very hazy even though fermentation was done, so I added a teaspoon of gelatin and cold crashed in the primary just like we've been talking about, and while it still isn't brilliantly clear, it is far better than before, AND I got zero hop matter in my bottles, they are completely gunk-free. I dry hopped and all in the primary and it worked awesomely. Only had about 1.5 inches of trub on the bottom, too, which is much more compact than I had expected. This was a 2-gallon batch but I did use 2 oz dry hops and 2 oz at whirlpool, so there's a lot of hops in there, but they compacted nicely. My FG was 1.014 and it tastes a little thick, syrupy, which is my only disappointment with this brew. Perhaps with carbonation it will lighten it up to where this doesn't even matter. Certainly is the best IPA I ever made though.

 

[SailorJerry]

Generally, secondaries aren't needed. Most things can be done right in the primary fermentor, it being a bucket, conical, Speidel, whatever. Not lifting the lid off a bucket keeps the CO2 rich gas inside the headspace, preventing oxidation, etc.

So there's no need to go out and buy carboys. Even if your recipe instructions tell you so, they're notoriously outdated, and keep the sales of carboys up.

Buckets have too large of a headspace and they can't be sealed very well either. Secondaries require a small headspace (almost none), and a good seal (bung). Low permeability is a good asset too when aging for months or years. Carboys still have a valid purpose, as secondaries when absolutely needed. I do most of my "secondaries" (if I need them) in corny kegs.

I use a (stainless) racking cane, it goes through the grommet hole, after removing the rubber grommet. Some of my bucket lids have a larger, 1" access hole in the middle I plug up normally with a stopper.

Yeah, pour in the gelatin, stir a bit, carefully don't whip it. Cold crash.

Thank you for the info, it's appreciated.
So, dissolve the 1 tsb of gelatin at 160 degrees, dump into fermenting bucket, stir lightly, then cold crash for a few days? I can handle that.

 

[SailorJerry]

The link below might help with your gelatin questions. Slightly different from Island Lizards method, in that they recommend the beer already be cold before adding gelatin. It is the method I use and is highly effective.

http://brulosophy.com/2015/01/05/the-gelatin-effect-exbeeriment-results/


Secondary for most people has gone the way of the dinosaurs except for the biggest of beers. If you are doing a secondary it should be because you intend to bulk age in that secondary for an extended period, either to assure FG is reached or to allow the flavors to mellow and blend. You do not want to bulk age in plastic because it is oxygen permeable and will result in oxidized beer. If you are still in primary and have taken the FG readings to a point of stability then just bottle it. If you haven't taken the FG readings and you still have airlock activity your are risking bottle bombs. The airlock is not the authority on fermentation progress but it is one of the indicators. Personally I would not bottle if I still had airlock activity. Also I would not secondary if I did not have glass or stainless to do it in. 1.100 is a huge beer, be patient and you will be rewarded. If you try to rush it you could lose half of it to bottle bombs, or it could be a shadow of what it might have been due to oxidation damage.

Yeah, it's a bigger beer than we expected due to an error, you know, the 2# of extra honey! Anyways, we'll take another gravity reading today or tomorrow and see where it's at. If it's stable, we'll be fining and cold crashing this weekend.

 

[dmtaylor]

Thank you for the info, it's appreciated.
So, dissolve the 1 tsb of gelatin at 160 degrees, dump into fermenting bucket, stir lightly, then cold crash for a few days? I can handle that.

Yup. I don't actually stir, I just swirl the fermenter slightly for 5 seconds. It works.