Off Gassing

[LiamK]

Hi All,

A quick question or two - the airlock on my fermentor is going crazy at the moment, but appears to be just off gassing CO2 as gravity has remained steady for last 7 days. (If a little high ... I under pitched the yeast I think!

My question is will this affect my bottling of the beer as I - and definitely the missus   - would prefer not to have 40 odd glass grenades sitting in the kitchen!?

Can I take it that the bottling process itself will remove a lot of the CO2 in the beer and it won't be a factor? Or that it is irrelevant once I calculate the sugar to add?

Thanks,
Liam

PS. The bubbles are coming through every 10 seconds at the moment! This hasn't happened to me before.

[Ryan]

Maybe better leaving it an extra few days mate take a gravity reading now and another in a couple of days to see if its changed. once it settles bottle as normal

[Leann ull]

3 days with the same gravity reading is key before bottling, what you brewing and whats your gravity now?

[LiamK]

Thanks for the replies.

It's a hoppy brown ale and finished at 1.022. Checked on day 5, 7 and 13.

I am planning on bottling Sunday as I can't let all that hop aroma disappear!

[DEMPSEY]

What yeast did you use to have it finish at 1022

[Leann ull]

That's very high brown ale should be 1010 ish , I'm not sure that's finished are you sure?
2 options give the bucket a twist to rouse the yeast off the bottom,  not a shake!
I'd transfer to a second sanitised bucket leave the sludge at the bottom behind  and the transfer will reactivate the yeast, or to guarantee pitch a packet of yeast in, either way put in a 20 degree location.
Under pitching will do that and you will probably be able to taste it in your beer
Don't get disheartened if it's a disaster we all do them in our first goes.

[imark]

1.022 could be the terminal gravity. Beersmith is pretty good at forecasting fg but not always right.
The specific malt used, mash, yeast and og are all factors to consider.
Gas coming off at the rate you're seeing doesn't necessarily mean it's fermenting.

[LiamK]

Thanks again for the replies!

DEMPSEY: I used Mangrove Jack's UK Dark Ale, but should have used 2+ sachets if I'd read their info sheet online or paid attention to Beersmith!  (Or used my tried and trusted Safale US-05...)

CH: I did the swirly thing twice with no change. Had read somewhere (!?) that throwing on more yeast might not work... Also I hadn't any spare yeast and I'm not very close to a homebrew shop. I will have some back-up in the fridge in future! Might try the transfer and see what happens, I only use a primary and don't normally rack to a secondary so to avoid contamination or oxidisation. Might need to re-hop then though...

My OG was 1.064 and aiming for a 6% beer so hoping to get to 1.018 or so. Strictly speaking it was to be a brown American style pale ale, so was hoping for a bit of body too. It doesn't taste overly sweet but certainly is not as dry as 1 was aiming for.

Not disheartened though and still trying to get to grips with Beersmith and dial in my BIAB setup!

imark: Not overly concerned about the gas unless it will be a factor when bottling. As in over carbonated bottles...

[imark]

My point on the gas was I wouldn't let that influence decision on whether it's done or not. The CO2 is probably coming out of solution.
I suspect that recipe had a good bit of unfermentables in it and you've reached fg.
I'd bottle it.

[LiamK]

No I get ya, I wasn't really worried about it not being 'done', more worried that from a a carbonation point of view that it was holding on to an awful lot of CO2 that might affect the pressure in the bottles.

But I think that I'll bottle tomorrow after checking the gravity again.

Thanks.

[LiamK]

Just to update this...

Checked again on day 15 and it had dropped to 1.014! I checked it two days following this and it remained at this, and no longer tastes sweet. Not sure whether the beer started fermenting again after a long rest and days after my last swirl or whether my measuring was faulty, which I doubt. Could the off gassing start the fermentation going again? It was pretty cloudy so would suspended matter affect the earlier reading? I'm not sure...

Anyhow, I bottled it last night so I'll hopefully it will be ready in a couple of weeks. I also purchased the full version of Beersmith, which will help.

Thanks again everyone for the input.

Now I'm off to design a Thornbridge Raven clone!

[molc]

Sounds like it was just still fermenting and the readings were misleading.

When in doubt, stick the lid back on and wait a while. Beer tends to take care of itself.