Is my beer contaminated?

[dbenzmaine]

Hey everybody,
I'm new to the forum, and i'm hoping to get some useful information. I brew a lot of small extract batches in my kitchen, but i'm hoping to step up to grain batches and larger sizes in the near future.
Anyway, the batch in my fermenter right now is a simple brown ale that i cooked up 12 days ago. I had originally intended to rack it last weekend and bottle it this week, but stuff came up that prevented me from doing anything last weekend. So this stuff bubbled away like usual for the first few days and then pretty much stopped around day 5. However, it started bubbling slowly again around day 9, and now (day 12) it's bubbling more than once a minute.
My guess is that i'm screwed. Do any of you have some insight? Thanks!
Dave

 

[El Pistolero]

You're fine...fermentation just got a little stuck for a couple days, then picked back up. Wait till it slows again then rack it or bottle it. Take an SG reading or two if you can just to make sure it's done.

 

[dbenzmaine]

That's good to hear. The only thing that i did differently on this batch was to use straight tap water in the fermenter to flash cool it as opposed to boiling a couple gallons earlier and letting it cool in the fermenter before adding the wort.

What causes stuck fermentation? Temperature changes?

 

[david_42]

Most of the time temperature changes, but they can also be the result of the yeast focculating early (which can be caused by a dozen things). The remaining yeast in suspension eventually gets things going. Somethings a temperature change stirs things up a bit and restarts the ferment.