Two weeks bubbling?

[whoaru99]

I've never seen one of my beers be real active for damn near two weeks straight. What am I to think of that?

Previous batches have all been petered out within a week or so, at least of strong airlock activity.

Yes, I know airlock activity isn't an absolute indicator but even a couple lagers I brewed had little obvious airlock activity after a week or so. This one, OTOH, has been bubbling away regularly until just yesterday; nearly two weeks, and still it'll let out a blurb from the airlock every few minutes. Damn...don't know it that's good or bad?

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

What's the recipe and yeast? Every yeast is different. I've had Belgians that kept going for weeks.

 

[whoaru99]

Pretty basic 1.071 maibock, two-stage starter off a stir plate, using WPL833.

Just surprised me it went this long because the second stage starter damn near erupted with action when I started it. I was expecting a massive start similarly in tbe fermenter but it started without any real incident about 6 hours after pitching. It just kept steadily chugging away.

 

[joshesmusica]

You said it yourself. Bubbling is never a sign of still fermenting beer. There's tons of reasons it will continue to bubble. The only way to know if it's finished is by checking the gravity.

 

[DurtyChemist]

I have the same thing going on here. Bubbling away and brews are sitting at 1.012 or close to it. Final gravity will tell you when it's done. I was just reminded that residual CO2 will bubble for a while but the gravity will tell you when fermentation is over. With that said I'd suggest doing what I'm doing and checking it 1 time a week. I've picked Sunday mornings and if the gravity hasn't dropped anymore I'm kegging and brewing.

 

[whoaru99]

You said it yourself. Bubbling is never a sign of still fermenting beer. There's tons of reasons it will continue to bubble. The only way to know if it's finished is by checking the gravity.

I think the strong bubbling would be a sign of ongoing fermentation since there was no change of temperature or anything. But, I do agree that no bubbling isn't necessarily an indication fermentation is complete.

 

[joshesmusica]

I think the strong bubbling would be a sign of ongoing fermentation since there was no change of temperature or anything. But, I do agree that no bubbling isn't necessarily an indication fermentation is complete.

Depends what you mean by strong bubbling. Just kegged an ESB last night that was two points below expected FG, so really done. It was bubbling about once every 1-2 mins up until I kegged it. The krausen dropped on day 3.

I left the yeast in the bottom of the carboy in order to save the yeast today, so I put the airlock back on, it was bubbling this morning.

Most yeast strains when pitched in properly aerated wort with the appropriate amount of viable cells will be finished with fermentation, including the clean up phase by 9-10 days. Some sooner. Very few will take longer than that.

 

[whoaru99]

By strong bubbling I meant like still bubbling enought to make foam in two quarts of Starsan I was using in blowoff tube setup.

It had really slowed down as of day 14, a blurb through an "S" airlock every couple minutes.

I'm away now for a week so exactly the moment's status is unknown.

 

[joshesmusica]

A bubble every couple minutes is more than likely just off-gassing.

The timeline isn't so important. That all depends on when you want to package it. Even if fermentation is finished around 9-10 days, it's not gonna hurt to let the beer sit in the fermenter for another week.

Sometimes a krausen isn't even sign that it's still fermenting. There's some Belgian strains that the krausen sometimes needs a little jostling to encourage it to drop. One Belgian witbier that I brewed once still had krausen at three weeks. It was at FG on day 11 (first time I checked it).

 

[whoaru99]

Put it in a keg today at 1.016. Come on May....

 

[modifier]

I've had a dunkelweizen bubbling for umm.. 5-6 weeks now, the gravity is slooowly dropping. OG was around .048, so too low and i used sprinkled WB-06 pack on aerated wort.. Last measurement was .010
This is the first brew for looong time that's off so many ways, but it's interesting to see where it's going