Here's the deal:
I brewed a semi experimental brown ale with some brown sugar and an OG of 1.078. It sat in the primary for a week at around 66 degrees. At that time, the airlock had slowed to about one bubble per minute. I transferred to secondary and the gravity was 1.020. To the secondary I added two hungarian oak cubes that had been soaked in capt morgan for the week. They weren't dripping wet with capt when I dropped them in, but they weren't completely dry either. For the next 5 days, there wasn't a single bit of movement in the airlock. When I took my reading on the 6th day, my gravity was still 1.020.
I went on a little trip and fully expected (planned) a bottling day of 4 days after this second reading. I had people over, food ordered and took my (what I thought was a formality) reading. The gravity was now 1.018! After much painstaking debate and agonizing discussions (and a coin flip), I decided to bottle it anyway. Since by style, this type of ale calls for slightly less carbo, I pulled back my priming addition and it's in a fully self-contained and temperature controlled container, so there's no mess if it does blow. We just decided to see what would happen.
My question for you experts/scarred veterens who still have glass shrapnel embedded in your bodies...if there's a ticking clock in these bottles, when does it go off? What kinds of reasons are there for the readings that I got? I kind of have a feeling that maybe the residual rum in the cubes arrested fermentation and then when I had a bit of a warmer day here in the NE it kicked it back into gear.
If you think I'm fine...by all means, ease my mind!
I brewed a semi experimental brown ale with some brown sugar and an OG of 1.078. It sat in the primary for a week at around 66 degrees. At that time, the airlock had slowed to about one bubble per minute. I transferred to secondary and the gravity was 1.020. To the secondary I added two hungarian oak cubes that had been soaked in capt morgan for the week. They weren't dripping wet with capt when I dropped them in, but they weren't completely dry either. For the next 5 days, there wasn't a single bit of movement in the airlock. When I took my reading on the 6th day, my gravity was still 1.020.
I went on a little trip and fully expected (planned) a bottling day of 4 days after this second reading. I had people over, food ordered and took my (what I thought was a formality) reading. The gravity was now 1.018! After much painstaking debate and agonizing discussions (and a coin flip), I decided to bottle it anyway. Since by style, this type of ale calls for slightly less carbo, I pulled back my priming addition and it's in a fully self-contained and temperature controlled container, so there's no mess if it does blow. We just decided to see what would happen.
My question for you experts/scarred veterens who still have glass shrapnel embedded in your bodies...if there's a ticking clock in these bottles, when does it go off? What kinds of reasons are there for the readings that I got? I kind of have a feeling that maybe the residual rum in the cubes arrested fermentation and then when I had a bit of a warmer day here in the NE it kicked it back into gear.
If you think I'm fine...by all means, ease my mind!