Should I bottle?

[Sometimesyoudie]

Hello all this is my first post.

Im a relatively new brewer, this is my 3rd batch (sweet water 420 clone, extract)


I have had the beer in primary for 17 days. 4 days ago I opened it up to dry hop it and the beer was calm and clear (no Krausen) so I pitched in the hop pelletes (no bag). Yesterday I opened it up to see what was going down and take a sample and the hops were still floating on the top and it appeared to be bubbling. I took a sample and tasted it and it did not taste very good, I wish I could describe it but it may just be because I guzzled down a clump of hop dust with it

In the past I have bottled on day 14 with no bad results but I figured I'd wait longer and I was planning on bottling this weekend (day 18) but now I'm not sure.

Should it be bubbling like this at this stage?

Do I need to do anything or can I bottle it and let it finish conditioning for 2-3 weeks?

Thanks in advance!

 

[porterpounder]

All fermented beer at average room temp have CO2 dissolved in them, so the addition of dry hops or warming temps will cause the beer to off-gas and bubble. The only way to know if it's done fermenting is to take a gravity reading, but at 18 days and with a healthy yeast pitch you should be good. General consensus is that you can leave an ale on primary yeast for about 4 weeks before autolysis flavors can show up. Brett cleans that up and lager yeast/cold temps give a bit more of a cushion. I wouldn't dry hop for more than 5-7 days. I get good flavor w/o grassiness with 2 separate 3 day additions.

 

[Sometimesyoudie]

All fermented beer at average room temp have CO2 dissolved in them, so the addition of dry hops or warming temps will cause the beer to off-gas and bubble. The only way to know if it's done fermenting is to take a gravity reading, but at 18 days and with a healthy yeast pitch you should be good. General consensus is that you can leave an ale on primary yeast for about 4 weeks before autolysis flavors can show up. Brett cleans that up and lager yeast/cold temps give a bit more of a cushion. I wouldn't dry hop for more than 5-7 days. I get good flavor w/o grassiness with 2 separate 3 day additions.

Awesome thanks! Any good suggestions on how to rack to bottling bucket without a bunch of hop gunk? I've heard pantyhose on the siphon end that goes into the bottling bucket should work

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Any good suggestions on how to rack to bottling bucket without a bunch of hop gunk? I've heard pantyhose on the siphon end that goes into the bottling bucket should work

I've always just used the auto siphon, and make sure to keep it out of the gunk on the bottom - no problems...yet?

 

[jimbobbillyray]

Whether you use pantyhose/cheesecloth (whatever) always sanitize anything that will touch your beer (including how you fasten the (whatever) to the auto siphon- you'll be glad you did IMO

 

[hanuswalrus]

I guess panty hose would work. Obviously make sure they're clean and sanitized first. I always use a muslin bag for my dry hops so I don't have to worry about that during siphoning, but not everybody does.

 

[justenoughforme]

i just leave a few hop flecks. when siphoning you're only going to get 5% at most of the gunk on the bottom.


but i like cloudy beer. and i like yeasty flavor.

 

[justenoughforme]

oh, back to the OP ... don't bottle without tracking gravity. there's NO OTHER WAY to know if it's still fermenting.

you FG could be reading 1.010 and you think you're done but then it creeps further... 1.007 say ... it could even be infected and on it's way to 1.000 or less. in these cases bottling without knowing that your FG is STABLE can result in explosions down the road.

even if your gravity looks low... you have no way of knowing how low it can go based on what bacteria etc. is in your beer.

 

[Gavin C]

Awesome thanks! Any good suggestions on how to rack to bottling bucket without a bunch of hop gunk? I've heard pantyhose on the siphon end that goes into the bottling bucket should work

If your going to use a mesh like this put it on the syphon end in the fermentor not the bottling bucket.

Bottle it up now. 17 days and a good dry hop time, bottle it. Here is a great post about bottling.

I woul read it. It covers alot of the common questions and avoiding the common errors.

 

[Zippox]

Awesome thanks! Any good suggestions on how to rack to bottling bucket without a bunch of hop gunk? I've heard pantyhose on the siphon end that goes into the bottling bucket should work

You are right that you could/should put sanitized pantyhost on that end. People have said this works well to catch hop particles.

If you have a large enough space in your fridge, it is best to put your carboy into the fridge for 3-7 days to force the hop pellets to drop to the bottom. That method is called "cold crashing". After cold crashing then there is less need for the pantyhose because most of it is on the bottom instead of in solution.

Like everything on this forum, it's up to debate if you need/don't need to do any of these steps.