ok to bottle?

[hollyk]

Thanks, ya'll in advance for reading, and your patience.

Started an ESB mash-extract on 8/28/11, OG 1.076
It fermented in our bedroom closet, brought it out on 9/28 to the kitchen to take a hydrometer reading and bottle. When I opened up the primary, there was a ring around the edge of the surface of the wort (as usual) and the surface was clear of krausen. Sanitized a measuring cup and grabbed a bit to pour in the hydrometer reader thingy, reading of 1.01. Figured we would bottle later in the day when it got a chance to settle down again after moving it.

Returned later in the day to the lid swelling up and activity in the airlock every few minutes. It has been consistently doing this through today, 10/2. Opened her up again to check gravity, there is now some foam/bubbles on the surface, gravity still reading at 1.01. We went ahead and racked to secondary, noticed lots of white bits swirling through the wort, and the secondary airlock is active as well.

Is this just offgassing? We've never had a batch reactivate like this before. Thoughts?

Thanks again!

 

[MalFet]

Give it a couple of days and check the gravity again.

 

[Unibrow]

Is it possible that the yeast was re-invigorated when you moved the bucket?

After my airlock stops bubbling, I will usually gently swirl or twist the bucket/carboy to encourage any yeast to keep on with the party. Never shake or rock the fermenter in a violent way. Keep it calm!

 

[hollyk]

Thanks for your responses!

Ok, so this is what it looks like this morning. Still occasional activity in airlock, every few minutes or so. Will check gravity tomorrow.

 

[Just1pepsi]

Looks like its letting go of some gas, wont hurt to wait a day or two and recheck the gravity I suppose.

 

[hollyk]

Looks like 1.01ish again. I really stunk at gen chem, so I tend to doubt my readings. But it hasn't moved. Surface still looks like the photo. Taste almost has a sour note at the front, but I've never had a homebrewed ESB before.

 

[Elweydoloco]

You're fine to bottle if you took gravity readings a few days apart. As yeast eat themselves out, they produce CO2. So even though fermentation is complete, the yeast are eating all their byproducts and creating CO2 while not eating fermentables. In other words you're getting CO2 but not getting more alcohol.

Wine makers know this more so than others and they even sell a CO2 diffuser for lack of better terms that agitates the wine and releases the CO2 some wine has such high concentrations, you'll get a wine fountain if you're not careful!!

With beer though, it doesn't matter as we want CO2 in our beer anyway so we have a nicely carbonated brew.

 

[hollyk]

Thanks! So it would be valuable to bottle soon so I get a well carbed beer?

 

[jaycount]

No, you would have unpredictable amounts of Co2 in your beer. It's best to wait it out then bottle once they seem to be done.

By measuring out and adding a pre-determined amount of sugar we are looking to carbonate our beer to a particular level. If you bottle early before the yeast are done producing Co2 it is impossible to know how much carbonation will be present in your bottles and the chance of bottle bombs increases.

 

[hollyk]

Thankya!