Beer Forum

I brewed a Belgian Wit on the 7th of November, today is the 26th and the air lock is still bubbling every 5 seconds. It had mellowed out a bit after about a week to once every 10-12 seconds, but then picked back up and has been bubbling every 5 seconds for the last week and a half.

Should I just wait until bubbling stops entirely before I secondary? Does it matter if it takes 4 weeks or even more for fermentation to stop? Is this a bad sign or are there any specific reasons this is occurring?

I'm still a newbie to this whole brewing business and this is my first beer I've made that hasn't used Wyeast 1056, which I'm under the impression is a relatively fast acting yeast. This was a White Labs Belgian Wit yeast. Is this type of activity concurrent with that type of yeast?

Thanks so much in advance for all your advice!
Adam

Personally I would move it to the secondary. It can continue to ferment as necessary and it won't continue sitting on the trub. Have you taken a hydrometer reading? Just curious what the gravity is.

Give it a taste.

fcgguitar: remember to use one of your most important tools in your brewer's toolbox. Get out that hydrometer and give it a reading. There are other reasons besides fermentation that you would see CO2 bubbling from the airlock. The hydrometer decides when a beer is done, not the airlock.

Pull a sample with a wine thief (turkey baster in many cases) and take a reading. Then taste it. As you are learning about brewing and different strains of yeast and how they behave, it can be good practice to test and taste the fermenting beer at different stages of fermentation. This will help acquaint you with the individual quirks of each beer and yeast strain.

If your beer is warming up, that alone is a reason that you would see more airlock activity. Test and taste, and you'll get a much better idea of where it's at.

Belgian Wit yeasts are notorious top-cropping yeasts. As they finish there initial growth phase and begin to chow down on the sugars in fermentation they rise to the surface of the wort where they slowly ferment the beer. Gently swirl your fermenter to get the yeast back in suspension in the wort. Be prepared for some more activity. Do this several times until the beer finishes out. Don't worry about leaving the beer on the yeast/trub. You will be fine leaving it there for 4-5 wks. w/o any real issues. Next time you brew with this style of yeast just be prepared for a slow working fermentation and be prepared to swirl to resuspend the yeast so they continue to ferment the beer instead of just hang out on the surface in a big floating pile!

+1 on the hydrometer or refractometer. Only way to tell when it's done.

and -1 on the "secondary"... skip it, and just let it clean up after itself in the primary. No need to risk the infection and/or oxidation.


Mylo