Fermentation Question

[BelgianWannabe]

is it possible that a beer would ferment completely in two days?
on sunday afternoon i pitched yeast into two buckets (5 gallons in each) of a norwegian farm style winter beer, the fermentors bubbled like crazy from sunday night until tuesday afternoon, then slowed down to one bubble every 30 seconds or so.

i added yeast energizer and ramped the heat in my house from 60 degrees F up to 70....again the airlocks bubbled like crazy, but had stopped completely when i woke up yesterday.

is it possible that it has just fermented completely in that short of a time period??

 

[IrregularPulse]

Need more info. What is recipe, OG, yeast used?
Also, never judge fermentation by bubbling airlock. Use your hydrometer.

 

[desertbronze]

Check the gravity - that will tell you what you need to know.

What yeast? Did you make a starter?

 

[Revvy]

What's the hydrometer say????


And even if it did, so what? Your beer will benefit from leaving it in the fermenter for at least 7-10 days...though many of us leave our beers in primary for 3-4 weeks...

Read what this brewer posted today for an idea why.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/990203-post1.html

Also read this.

http://blogs.homebrewtalk.com/Revvy/Think_evaluation_before_action/


Your beer will benefit from patience.

 

[carl spakler]

Yeast are notorious for fermenting on their own schedule. Take a gravity reading, speculation due to reading the airlock activity is unreliable.

 

[BelgianWannabe]

thanks for the tips everyone
thanks for the links revvy, very informative.
i will check the gravity tonight (og was 1.075)

anyway, to those asking for more info, i used a dry yeast (so no starter), the recipe was (for a ten gallon batch...which we split into 2 buckets) 20 pounds of pale malt, 2 pounds of smoked malt, 3 oz of juniper berries....added honey and brown sugar during the boil (one pound each)

 

[BelgianWannabe]

What's the hydrometer say????


And even if it did, so what? Your beer will benefit from leaving it in the fermenter for at least 7-10 days...though many of us leave our beers in primary for 3-4 weeks...


Your beer will benefit from patience.

i know that age and patience is a necessary for most brews... and i do plan to leave this one in for (at very least) a week.
i just wanted to make sure i was not dealing with a stuck fermentation (so stubborn that even energizer and raised temp couldn't help)

 

[Revvy]

i just wanted to make sure i was not dealing with a stuck fermentation (so stubborn that even energizer and raised temp couldn't help)

That's where the hydrometer comes in, it's really the only way to "read" whether or not a fermentation is stuck or not.

Anything else is realy just a guess.

Let us know.

Oh, how did you "process" the juniper berries? Did you boil them mash them, what? It sounds interesting.

 

[BelgianWannabe]

we put the juniper berries (and their branches) in the mash
got the idea for this recipe from Draft magazine....they had an article about xmas beers, and it starts off telling you about an old Norwegian farmer who makes a beer out smoked malt, pale malt, juniper (berries and branches) and baker's yeast every year about 3 weeks before the holiday..... bottles it a week before, and drinks it with friends and families on xmas night.

no filtering, no secondary, meant to be smoky, thick, malty and cloudy.

anyway yeah...i will give it a reading tonight or tomorrow and let you all know.

thanks again

 

[BelgianWannabe]

ok, so....here is where it gets weird.
it's a ten gallon batch, split into two buckets.
same type of buckets, same recipe, same yeast, same temp, right next to each other in the same room.
bucket number 1....krausen foam on top, gravity 1.031
bucket number 2....almost no foam on top, gravity 1.020

any idea why this would happen?

 

[Revvy]

ok, so....here is where it gets weird.
it's a ten gallon batch, split into two buckets.
same type of buckets, same recipe, same yeast, same temp, right next to each other in the same room.
bucket number 1....krausen foam on top, gravity 1.031
bucket number 2....almost no foam on top, gravity 1.020

any idea why this would happen?

That's not wierd that's proof of the the "X" factor that comes from dealing with living organisms, with the fickleness of mother nature.

That's what I can't stress enough to the new brewer, that we are involved with living micro organisms not mixing inorganic chemicals, or making koolaid.

We don't make the beer, the yeasts do...We just provide them a clean factory (the fermentor) and the right building materials (water, malt, hops), and they do what they're experts at.

There could be any number of factors that may appear the same to us, but on the microscopic level could be a whole world of difference to the yeasties. It could be one degree temp difference between the two fermenters, some difference in air pressure, a little more water in one bucket, or sanitizer, or one pack of yeast is more lazy than the other.

That's why I say there are no two fermentations that are exactly the same, and you proved it.

 

[BelgianWannabe]

the worst part is, i am not that new....i have been brewing for two years.
i feel like a chump, in that i (obviously) should know alot more about it by now.

anyway, my plan is to just let em sit until next sunday (two weeks from the day i added the yeast), check the gravity, and if it still seems a little high, i'll blend em in the bottling bocket, and just not add priming sugar.

anyway, thanks again for all the adivce/knowledge revvy, you da man!