Still fermenting?

[rickprice407]

Almost 2 weeks ago my son and I brewed 10 gallons of a Belgian Ale and 10 gallons of stout. We added extra sugar and some malt to the Belgian and extra brown sugar and sorghum syrup to the stout. I had cooled each to around 70 with a plate chiller and set them in the fermentation freezer overnight to get them to around 66. I pitched a Wyeast Irish ale yeast on the stouts and a Trappist High Gravity on the Belgian the next morning and closed the lid. Both yeasts have a tolerance of around 12%. They were a bit slow to start but by Tuesday afternoon all were bubbling just fine ... and have been ever since. Wednesday morning I could see LOTS of churning going on in the Belgians and the surface of the stouts looked like they were fixing to boil with all the bubbles appearing. They have slowed down but one of the Belgians is still gurgling about twice each minute. The yeast has floculated in all four.

I'm not used to seeing this type of activity at day 12. We had planned to keg the Belgian this weekend and start carbing it and to move the stouts to secondaries with cranberries. However, if they are still fermenting this is likely going to be put off at least a week. Is this a normal fermentation or do we have a problem. If the beasties are still making alcohol from the extra sugars then I'm fine with that.

Anyone else seen anything like this? :cross:

 

[TyTanium]

Have a hydrometer?

Bubbling means CO2 is escaping. That could be from yeast activity, but it could also be that you bumped the carboy and released dissolved bubbles. Not a good gauge of "is it done"

If tastes good and your gravity is stable, then you keg.

PS: This is common for Belgian yeast - they go hot & heavy and first, but the last few points can take as long (if not longer) than the first 80% of fermentation. Time is good.

 

[rickprice407]

Didn't get bumped - all four carboys are in a chest freezer that could hold 8 - I can open the lid and dang near crawl in without bumping one. At least the banana smell is pretty much gone - was like an alcoholic banana in there for the first week - couldn't breathe if you stuck your head down to read the stick-on thermometers on the carboys.

 

[TyTanium]

Bumped isn't the point. The point is that bubbling doesn't tell you if fermentation is done.

Take a hydrometer reading.