Secondary Question

[beerme70]

I am currently experiencing a first. I brewed up a blonde ale 2 weeks ago, using Northwest Ale yeast (Wyeast 1332). I started fermenting in bottling buckets for the ease of transferring to kegs. Airlock activity was at a minimum, so I took a hydrometer reading from the SANITIZED (capitalized for clarity) spigot. A little above target, so I let it sit a couple more days. Still had minimal airlock activity, took another reading, no change. I decided to put into a secondary for grins because this is the first time doing a blonde ale ( I like my ambers and browns) and I wanted to give it some clearing time. I cracked the lid at the beginning of the transfer for easy flow. After the transfer, I pulled the lid and, BEHOLD, there was still considerable krausen in the bucket. Now, I have steady airlock activity in the carboy, and a thin krausen, but all smells and looks normal. Could it have been a slow/suck fermentation, and just got aroused during the transfer? Like I said, I have never had to deal with this before, so I don't know what to think.

 

[Kee]

How much above target was the beer? Racking to secondary can shake things up and restart a fermentation (or release some CO2), but it sounds like you are close to expected FG already (What is the hydrometer reading?) Since there was still krausen in the primary it is probably not quite done yet. (how long has it been fermenting?)

Give it some time.

 

[beerme70]

58 og, with a target fg (ala BeerSmith) of 16. My measured gravity was at 18. I brewed it Oct. 26th in the early a.m., with fermentation kicking in after about 5 hours. I just find it odd considering that my high gravity Oatmeal Stout only took about 8 days to ferment out. Other than a Skull Splitter clone I made about 4 years ago, this is the longest fermentation I have experienced. I would like to say that brewing beer isn't an exact science, but ironically, IT IS

 

[Kee]

It is a science but hard to control every variable precisely at the homebrew level.

I don't know what yeast you are using but it is more likely to drop a couple of more gravity points at the upper temperature level for the yeast.