Too early to be thinking stuck fermentation?

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velorider

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Hi, I brewed an Imperial Wit on Monday. Extract, 1.5L starter with Wyeast 3463-Forbidden Fruit, OG 1.072. I aerated well. It fermented nicely with only a couple hours lag time but now there are only about 2 bubbles a minute in the airlock after only 72 hours. I pitched at 65 and it fermented at 70. I just checked the gravity at 1.022. Can I expect it to drop much more even with little activity in the airlock?
 
Sounds totally normal... leave it in there another week, then send it to the secondary for a couple... all is well my friend. You have already reached about 70% attenuation, it will drop several points even if you dont see bubbles, you are fine. That yeast only attenuates to 72-76%... so you are right on schedule.
 
Wit yeast go a little / a lot slower than your normal ale yeast. Adding a week to two to the primary fermentation is a good idea, mine just seem to slowly work the last two weeks producing very fine bubbles that are hard to see but it is still going.
 
You should be ok. I brewed my 2nd batch on Monday and I used a 3 foot blow off tube and kept my primary inside a closed igloo cooler. I did not see any bubbles up until today and kept it between 65-68F the whole time. I did have krausen and could smell a lot of guess but no air bubbling what so ever. I tried shaking it but still nothing. Today I took out the wort sample that was used to take OG that was kept in the same cooler and saw that it went from 1.40 to 1.22 in 4 days. I took out my primary out of the cooler and let it settle down for an hour or so and took another reading and it was 1.16. I am brewing AHS Blue Moon clone and FG is supposed to be around 1.10 so I guess I have a silent yet deadly ;) fermentation. Since I took it out of the cooler the temperature has been steady at 68.9F and I've replaced the blow off tube with an airlock just to see if I ever get any bubbles.

The moral of the story is - dont jump to conclusions, take a hydrometer reading, keep it in the primary longer and you'll be ok. I am planning to keep mine in primary for 3 weeks even tho I am already near my target gravity.

My suggestion to you is to rehydrate your dry yeast if you use it. I did it for my first batch but not for second. First batch had a lot of activity but that doesnt mean anything.

 
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Your yeast and process are fine, look at it... you got nearly 70% attenuation out of a 72-76% attenuating yeast in what, 3 days or so? That is really quick considering your OG... Id think it went quite fast instead of the other way around.

POL
 
As others have said, you're fine. With that high of an OG I wouldn't have even bothered to check it before 14 days or so - it will keep going but more slowly. It sounds like it's going exactly as it should be. Don't worry about what the airlock is doing, it won't bubble much after 4-5 days.
 
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