Fermentation while oak aging

[CAbrewing]

Hi all,

I have a tripel aging in the secondary with bourbon soaked oak chips. I also added about 6 oz of bourbon in the 5 1/4 gallon batch as i wanted to have a good bourbon flavor.

When I transfered to the secondary I got a bit (but not a whole lot) of the yeast cake in the secondary. It has been in the secondary for about 2 weeks now and, what appears to be a yeast cake, is forming at the bottom. In addition, yeast appears to still be in suspension on the sides and moving.

My question is this. Is it possible that the yeast is still attenuated / fermenting? Is this possible with the addition of the bourbon? The yeast I used was WLP530. Not sure if this helps but the FG was off by .004 points from the FG stated on the recipe. If it is fermenting, can i just take another gravity reading after aging and to get a new ABV? Or does the bourbon skew that number and how can I account for that?

Sorry for the massive amount of info and thanks in advanced for the input.

 

[kingwood-kid]

The bourbon will skew the gravity a little and the ABV more. You can check the gravity now and see if it changes. Assuming you fermented it for at least 2 weeks before transferring, almost all the fermentation should be done. Yeast (and other stuff) will continue to slowly drop out of solution, whether they are fermenting or not, which will make the cake grow. This will happen faster at lower temps, but a tripel on oak needn't be rushed.

 

[CAbrewing]

Thanks kingwood. I think I'll check it tomorrow. I did ferment for a full two weeks. It could be a temp thing because I'm fermenting a Weissebier right next to it. Ambient temp is at 69 but during the intense fermentation it was at 62. I'll post an update if I have any other questions. Thanks again for the quick reply. Cheers