first brew secondary cleanup / cold crash questions

[binkleybloom]

Hey all,

First off - "Hi Everybody!". New brewer, first post, and currently obsessing over my ferment.

Jumped into this hobby with my first brew on Dec 27th. Started right out with an AG setup, and have attempted to do a Troegs IPA clone. Now I'm concerned about my ferment not stopping where I thought it would. OG on this was 1.076, and I'm now measuring 1.010. Lower than I expected to see from the Wyeast American Ale - expected it to attenuate around 1.015.

I've still got bubbles about every 90 seconds on the air lock, and I'm worried that I've got some infection that is pulling the gravity lower. Admittedly, I'm hesitant to keep pulling daily measurements because of the amount of beer that it wastes so I'm not sure how long it's been at 1.010, and if it's still moving. (Refractometer is on my short list of future acquisitions).

So after that setup, here's my question: Does cold-crashing the beer prevent cleanup during secondary ferment? I'd like to stop any further conversion - especially if it's from some other bug, but I would like to allow the yeast to do it's cleanup during secondary.

I'm very tempted to do the dry hop now, cold crash, and bottle next weekend. What do you lads (and ladies) think?

Much appreciated!

 

[brewkinger]

I suspect that something is amiss here. Assuming your gravity readings are accurate, that already puts this beer at 8.7% which is pretty good at this point.

My suspicions and possible list of causes:

Your hydrometer is not calibrated properly. Test using distilled water (tap will work in a pinch) at somewhere around 60-68 degree and make sure that it is reading 1.00

If calibrated correctly, then at what temperature did you take the OG reading at? Higher temps lead to error.
You may have not mixed the wort well before taking the OG sample and might have gotten inaccurate reading due to a concentrated sample.

A refractometer is a good thing to have with AG brewing, but in this scenario would not be as useful as a well calibrated hydrometer.
Alcohol skews the reading with a refractometer and therefore after fermentation starts, if a refractometer is used then you need to use a conversion factor to figure out the real reading.

I agree with the repeated samples; in addition to loss of beer, EACH and EVERY time that you take a sample you are introducing a chance for an infection. Especially early on in the ferment when there is less alcohol present to kill off the nasties.
Cold crashing will force the remaining yeast to flocculate to the bottom.. yes, but if they are not done and there are still fermentable sugars in there then you may have a problem later:
1) Your beer might taste sweeter than it was supposed to.
2) When you add priming sugar and bottle then you wake the yeast up and they have MORE than enough sugar to carbonate and you end up with BOTTLE BOMBS!!

Check that your instruments are calibrated and then IMO, let this beer sit until you get 2 consecutive steady gravity readings over a period of 2-3 days.
Then bottle it and chalk it up as a learing experience.

Hope this helps.

 

[binkleybloom]

Hi Brewkinger.

I was pretty careful with temp on the OG reading - I sampled after chilling so I was measuring at 70º (hydro is calibrated for 68º). I just double checked it with tap water (1.001).

The beer currently has a sweet taste up front, but finishes very dry - leaves you thirsty, so my suspicion is there's a fair bit of alcohol(?).

I'll keep watch on it. I do fear the bottle bombs!

Thanks!