Hi all,
Over the weekend I brewed my first all-extract NEIPA, and have a few questions about fermentation I was hoping to get cleared up.
As an overview, I made a 2.5 gallon batch and my brew OG was 1.061 (targeted 1.060) and I pitched ~50 billion cells of WLP067. I had airlock activity within 9 hours and full blown fermentation within 18 hours. I added my dry hops (~3 oz total of mosaic, cascade, and citra) at hour 48 and have been monitoring its gravity through a spigot and my refractometer. It still seems active in the airlock but the past few refractometer readings have been relatively the same. This is day 4 of fermentation for me, so I had kind of expected this, but still have a few questions.
1. My OG was 15 Brix, and my gravity has stabilized at 8 Brix. I know this 8 Brix is probably wildly wrong because of the presence of alcohol in the beer at this point, so should I just wait until it stabilizes, and not worry about what the reading is on my refractometer? I could pull a hydrometer reading, but I'd rather not since this is only a 2.5 gallon batch and that would basically take my yield down by a bottle. Additionally, the spigot is pretty low on the bucket, so I think I'm pulling trub and yeast sediment into the refractometer sample as well, would these throw off the reading?
2. I don't have a fermentation chamber, so the coldest I could get the beer was 68F (reading on the outside) so I know the actual temp inside was probably closer to 72F+. I know this may have made some fusel alcohols, but this also speeds up fermentation right? So I could expect to probably be around final gravity by now, I'd think? The first 24 hours were actually probably closer to 76F inside the fermenter, my AC couldn't keep up with the outside temps of Texas (come on now its October!). When do you think I could expect this beer to be done fermenting?
3. I'm planning to bottle this (I know, not ideal) as I don't have a kegging setup (future plans) yet. I guess my question is should I even bother letting the beer condition in the fermenter or just go straight to bottles around like day 7-9 and be as careful as I can about introducing oxygen. I don't want to have any bottle bombs, so I guess I should make sure primary fermentation is done too, right? I have oxygen absorbing caps, so this should at least do some to reduce oxidation from the headspace/dissolved oxygen in the beer, right? I just want to confirm my plan is probably not terrible, and may work, lol.
I plan to have the beer finished one month after carbonation is done, if not sooner, I know this style is better than way. Let me know what answers to my questions you all have for me. Thanks!
Over the weekend I brewed my first all-extract NEIPA, and have a few questions about fermentation I was hoping to get cleared up.
As an overview, I made a 2.5 gallon batch and my brew OG was 1.061 (targeted 1.060) and I pitched ~50 billion cells of WLP067. I had airlock activity within 9 hours and full blown fermentation within 18 hours. I added my dry hops (~3 oz total of mosaic, cascade, and citra) at hour 48 and have been monitoring its gravity through a spigot and my refractometer. It still seems active in the airlock but the past few refractometer readings have been relatively the same. This is day 4 of fermentation for me, so I had kind of expected this, but still have a few questions.
1. My OG was 15 Brix, and my gravity has stabilized at 8 Brix. I know this 8 Brix is probably wildly wrong because of the presence of alcohol in the beer at this point, so should I just wait until it stabilizes, and not worry about what the reading is on my refractometer? I could pull a hydrometer reading, but I'd rather not since this is only a 2.5 gallon batch and that would basically take my yield down by a bottle. Additionally, the spigot is pretty low on the bucket, so I think I'm pulling trub and yeast sediment into the refractometer sample as well, would these throw off the reading?
2. I don't have a fermentation chamber, so the coldest I could get the beer was 68F (reading on the outside) so I know the actual temp inside was probably closer to 72F+. I know this may have made some fusel alcohols, but this also speeds up fermentation right? So I could expect to probably be around final gravity by now, I'd think? The first 24 hours were actually probably closer to 76F inside the fermenter, my AC couldn't keep up with the outside temps of Texas (come on now its October!). When do you think I could expect this beer to be done fermenting?
3. I'm planning to bottle this (I know, not ideal) as I don't have a kegging setup (future plans) yet. I guess my question is should I even bother letting the beer condition in the fermenter or just go straight to bottles around like day 7-9 and be as careful as I can about introducing oxygen. I don't want to have any bottle bombs, so I guess I should make sure primary fermentation is done too, right? I have oxygen absorbing caps, so this should at least do some to reduce oxidation from the headspace/dissolved oxygen in the beer, right? I just want to confirm my plan is probably not terrible, and may work, lol.
I plan to have the beer finished one month after carbonation is done, if not sooner, I know this style is better than way. Let me know what answers to my questions you all have for me. Thanks!
