thirdary fermenter???

hylowa · Nov 12, 2007

Chocolate Stout
Northwestern Dark Malt Extract 6.6lbs.
British Crystal Malt 1lb.
British Chocolate Malt 1lb.
British Roast Barely 1lb.
Styrian Goldings / Slovenia 2oz.
Wyeast Irish Ale Yeast1084 4.25oz.
Hershey's Cocoa Special Dark 8oz.

OG: 1.067
fermentation lag: 10 hours @ room temp

after putting it into the secondary fermenter on friday night, and today its got a graish film ontop, with crusty bits floating just below the surface. much like the bits on the side of the fermenter after openning my primary to start racking. dead yeast? live yeast in statsis? if you followed all the edits, you might have noticed that i lost track of which fermenter had which brew in it(next task it to label fermenters) but i can tell its the chocolate cause of the brownish yeast cake, the xmas has more of a tan dockers color to it.

Poindexter · Nov 12, 2007

third fermenter = tertiary. Fourth = quarternary

Gray bits _probably_ congealed cocoa butter.

cheezydemon · Nov 12, 2007

Yeah, I am all for experimentation, but anything hershey's will probably have some stuff in it other than chocolate.

Most brewers would be panicked about contamination, I commend your lack of hysterics.

No sign of this until the secondary? That seems odd.

z987k · Nov 12, 2007

Generally I would say the tertiary should be the bottle/keg.

hylowa · Nov 13, 2007

it was mainly the yeasty color floating on the top that caught my attention, cause it seems to be a settling yeast, due to the build up on the bottom of the carboy. i was askin about a third fermenter cause of getting it away from the floating yeasts. and the lil bits. again, not that much, more like krausen that got sucked in throu the racking cane, but that hasnt settled either.

cheezydemon · Nov 13, 2007

Wierd. Sure rack to tertiary, it can't hurt as long as you don't get lots of bubbles in the beer. But if it is there now, it is either contamination and your beer will stay contaminated, or it isn't hurting, and it probably won't hurt it. Yeast doesn't float like that in my experience. At most yeasty chunks will float up and dissolve back down, not float endlessly or form a film.