Wherry Gone Wrong?

[MrCat]

Hey folks,

I'm a bit worried about my first wherry (Woodfordes kit), I put it on on the 5th and it's now the 10th, it has not bubbled very much at all apart from maybe a day in that time and I'm 94% certain there's no air leak in the fermenter and bubbly air lock. I've never done a wherry before, but I gave it a gentle stir in case it had just stopped but it didn't have any result. It's probably dropped to about 16 or 17C over night on occasion but generally been at about 20.

I was a bit trashed when I made the brew at about midnight and forgot to take an sg reading. I'm wondering if something's gone wrong and whether I should just keg it and see? What would you do?

 

[BruinBeerBear]

Hi MrCat,
I have my first (tweaked) Wherry currently bottle conditioning, really looking forward to it after reading all the enthusiastic reviews. More than once in the past I too have forgotten to take SG readings but it's never been a problem.
The usual SG for this beer is, I believe, 1040-1042 ish and provided you followed procedure (sanitation, correct pitching temp etc) all should be well and it's unlikely that your brew wasn't very close to that.
The FG reading is more important than SG so what I would do now is take a hydrometer reading to see what you're down to. After just five days it's highly unlikely to be finished but as long as the current reading is significantly below 1040 you know fermentation is progressing normally.
One thing to watch out for with Wherry appears to be 'stuck' fermentation. Typically this seems to occur at around 1020 so worth taking a few readings two or three days apart. My FG at bottling was 1008 which is about average for this kit. Good luck.

 

[C-Rider]

Yea if you are doing an extract kit and hit your volumns the you got the SG that the kit states. Don't worry bout bubbles in air lock. You need to take SG readings to see if it's done. I'd wait at least 2 weeks before testing.