gravity drop

[mikes_brew]

I brewed a choc. stout, went great! hit the OG of 1054 capped and it was fine, week later little activity and decided to transfer to 2ndary. went fine, today 2 days after transfer, i took a reading and 1010! can it go down that fast? It was not real dark by anymeans, my brown ale is darker. tasted ok but I fear contamination? what do you think

thanks
mike

 

[hoplobster]

Beer can ferment out quickly, especially the lower gravity ales and the color or darkness really doesn't have any bearing on how fast your beer will ferment.

What yeast did you use? That should really tell us why your beer dropped so fast... I used SafAle S-04 recently and it started and ended very fast.

I'm bottling an ESB today and it the OG was 1.054 and it went down to 1.012 in about a week. My general procedure is to brew, let it sit in primary for 2-3 weeks and then bottle. I don't usually bother checking the gravity before bottling any more, but this batch was an exception.

If your stout tastes good, I'm sure it's fine.

 

[TheJadedDog]

If it tastes good I wouldn't worry about it. A week seems like a reasonable amount of time for fermentation to me.

 

[david_42]

Did you take a gravity before racking? I suspect it was completely fermented before the transfer.

 

[malkore]

I've had beers ferment 30 points in 36 hours after pitching. This sounds normal, especially for these warm brewing months.

 

[Evan!]

yeah, man, no worries...not uncommon to be done in 2 days.

 

[mikes_brew]

thanks for the responses, I know I will have a bad batch sometime, just don't want it to be this one and have to waste 5 gal.

I'll let it sit for a week then check again and bottle.
thanks
mik